Program Review
Staff / Faculty / Chairman
The chairman is very approachable and well respected, this is not a program where the chairman barely knows any of the residents. The program director is actively involved in all facets of the program both looking for ways to improve it and keeping it compliant with RRC (he is an RRC site reviewer so this is emphasized). There are multiple faculty in each discipline, including tumor who are generally very approachable and enjoy teaching.
Didactics / Teaching
Each service has a weekly teaching conference for the residents on that service. There is a daily "checkout" in which the on-call junior resident presents all cases and consults from the previous night that is supervised by the trauma attendings. There are program wide conferences for 3 hours on wednesdays with resident rounds, grand rounds, basic science, and m & m conferences. There is also a program wide conference on Fridays for 1.5 hours with a fracture conference with the trauma attendings followed by a resident case based conference which changes discipline based on the week and supervising faculty. The conferences are led by the faculty of the particular subspecialty that is being covered. The conferences are interactive with residents and faculty contributing.
Operating Experience
Excellent. High volume, hands on experience. Doing appropriate level cases as a junior and senior. Good autonomy as described in previous review where you learn to make decisions in the OR and often run your own room on some services. In addition to rotations at MCW you also work with high volume fellowship trained surgeons from the community in the community rotations and at the VA hospital.
Clinic Experience
Well rounded with all subspecialties covered. Program director ensures that residents spend appropriate amount of time in clinic on each service, generally about 40% of day to day activities during the week (about 2 days on average). Overall more time is spent in the OR than the clinic but you spend enough time in clinic to know why you are operating.
Research Opportunities
Research opportunities are available and there is a graduation research requirement but research is not heavily emphasized in the program. Multiple Basic Science Faculty including Biomechanics professors at Marquette also on ortho faculty and are very helpful with basic science studies.
Residents
A strength of the program. Residents are a close knit group, a mix of married and single residents in the program that tend to work hard but also have fun together outside of work.
Lifestyle
Overall very reasonable work hours and expectations. The previous review questioning the work hours compliance in light of home call is unfounded. The opportunity to go home on call is welcomed by the residents, sure some nights you may be there all night, especially as an inexperienced 2, but if so you go home early the next day. Let me assure you, the program director who has been a program site reviewer for the RRC ensures compliance. Work hours have been logged in the past and averaged around 60 hours per week for the program. The home call is especially nice at children's (not too much going on at 3 AM usually) and in the winter when trauma slows a bit.
Location / Housing
Milwaukee is a nice city to live in. Fun downtown area along the lake with the Medical Center on the west side of the city in the near suburbs. You can live walking distance from the hospital and be in a nice neighborhood. Big enough to have plenty to do but still easy to get around and relatively inexpensive.
Limitations
If you just have to be out of residency in 5 years, then this place isn't for you.
Overall Rotation Experience / Conclusion
It is one of only 2 adult level 1 trauma centers in the state, the Children's Hospital of WI is one of the busiest pediatric hospitals in the country and the only pediatric level 1 center in the state, a VA experience and community rotations. With multiple faculty in all fields and this breadth of resources that aren't shared between programs as they are in some larger urban areas MCW offers an excellent and extremely well rounded experience.
