Program Review
Staff / Faculty / Chairman
I was really impressed by all of the attendings at Geisinger. They were all very approachable and actively engaged in the apprenticeship model that Geisinger uses. Both in clinic and the OR they were dedicated to resident teaching. More impressively, the residents have the attendings cell phone numbers and call them freely while on call or for other reasons. They sponsor journal clubs at their homes and participate in other social events put on independently or by industry.
Dr. Horwitz and Dr. Suk (the Chairman) are huge names in trauma and the trauma service is a big part of the residency. They do a ton of bread and butter to very complex pelvic and nonunion surgeries. Both are very approachable and enjoy teaching. They are skilled technically but also let their residents do the majority of every case.
Dr. Cush is the residency director and Dr. Klena is the assistant residency director. They're both young and former residents at Geisinger. They're both great to work with and very down to earth. They treat you as an equal and are really there for resident teaching. It was a pleasant surprise in comparison to other malignant or hierarchal programs I've seen. They have one resident with them each 3 month block that does every case.
Didactics / Teaching
Didactics are one of the great strengths of this program. The residents have protected time from 630 to 8 every morning for all residents on every service. 630-7 is either a chief resident run book review or a 15 minute review of the trauma from the night before. 7-8 is attending or resident lecture on a systems based topic.
Apparently they do very, very well on the OITE because of this. Something like 96-99% for the past 5 years.
Operating Experience
The operative experience at Geisinger is amazing. They use a mentorship model where each resident is paired with an attending for 3 months. The attendings are very comfortable with giving up the knife and during my rotation the resident did at least 90% of every case if not all of it.
There are no fellows. There is no junior floor resident. There is no night float. Each resident is the primary one scrubbed for every case. Furthermore, each attending has a PA that does the paperwork to facilitate your education. This is the case for the PGY2 as well as the PGY5. Double scrubbing only occurs when an upper level wants to take a PGY2 through a femoral nail or a hemi. There are something like 18 attendings to the 15 residents.
Consequently, PGY2-3’s do challenging cases without much help and do the bread and butter with the attending watching unscrubbed. The current chiefs are more skilled technically than any residents or fellows I’ve met.
Clinic Experience
Clinic is clinic. With the mentorship model the resident spends clinic days with his attending. He signs up patients that he will operate on as sees his own postops. Most attendings take time to teach throughout clinic.
Research Opportunities
There is a dedicated research team of medical students, international fellows, PhDs and research assistants. Residents are involved in varying degrees. Research isn’t forced upon anyone but some residents are more excited about it than others.
Residents
A truly awesome group of guys. They get along really well both in and out of the hospital. Every resident is present every morning at conference and this promotes a fun and tightknit group. They really act like they’ve been friends for years. The upper levels actively participate in teaching the interns and lower levels both in the OR and conference.
Also, the interns are involved in conference every day and are encouraged to get out of nonorthopaedic duties to scrub or do reductions. They are considered part of the residency not farmed out to gen surg for 12 months.
They have orthopaedic flag football and softball teams that are part of the Geisinger intramurals. They help each other out when one gets swamped with a long OR day or with consults. They have frequent formal social events such as paintball, camping, rafting and golf outings. They also all hang out on free weekends either to bbq or go to a football game. This really impressed me the most, if I’m going to be spending 80hrs/wk with a group of guys, they’d better get along. About half are married.
Lifestyle
Call is great. They take home call q10 from 3 months into PGY2 – PGY5. Intern year and early PGY2 takes buddy call with an upper level who teaches reductions how to handle call responsibilities. It is a very busy level 1 trauma center (they get patients from 2-3 hours away in every direction) so they are busy at night but do get a few hours of sleep. There are 2-3 residents on for each weekend who round on every patient. If you’re not on call you have no responsibilities. The downside is PGY5s are still taking primary call.
There is at least one PA for each attending (some have 2) as well as a dedicated service RN to do all the discharge paperwork, arrange follow up, run postop clinics and really do any scut work that is not educational. The resident runs the service however and is responsible for making sure everything is managed.
The PGY3-5 moonlight on weekends at the level 2 trauma hospital affiliate. They make extra money and seem to like the bread and butter cases.
Location / Housing
Danville is the biggest downside to this program. Lots of outdoor activities but the restaurant and bar scene in Danville is limited. Bucknell and Bloomsburg University are nearby but this is at least a 10 minute drive for a better nightlife.
Most residents own homes within 5 minutes of the hospital others rent nearby.
Limitations
If you need to live in a city, Danville may be a deal breaker. Otherwise every facet to this program is top notch.
Overall Rotation Experience / Conclusion
Amazing operative experience, great didactics with a proven track record. Down to earth staff with lots of ancillary help purely focused on resident teaching. Great group of residents. Would love to end up there.
