Hi everyone.
Attention all rotating medical students/residents: please give us your experiences at hospitals across the country. I cannot be alone in struggling to find genuine reviews of certain hospitals/programs. While its great to do Q&As with residents for interview day and being able to interview with residents, its hard to ascertain if they are being completely truthful about their program. I mean, every program I have interviewed at says their residents are family/non-toxic- that just cannot be the case in reality. I know for a fact that if someone who has been able to audition/rotate with a program or is a part of the program can probably give some pros and cons of each site they've been to, especially since this forum is relatively anonymous. So I thought I'd start:
I go to a Chicago school so can share some of my experiences in the area:
Cook County/Stroger: strong IMG program; lots of residents. No 24 hour call, has night float system. Being a county hospital you will see anything and everything. My first day I saw a super rare cancer and PCP pneumonia in the same patient. IM residents also care for patients from the county jail, which is a bit intimidating. As a med student here, they give lots of autonomy but also rounds are a wealth of knowledge; I always felt like my brain would explode (in a good way) after rounds with how much the attendings and residents taught me in a span of like 2 hours. Cook has a trauma ICU, a burn ICU and unit, surgical ICU, med ICU, cardiac ICU, etc. IMO seems like the third year residents are some of the most intelligent people I have worked with: I feel this program would prepare a resident for literally anything after residency.
Pros: seems like excellent training, lots of residents and good camaraderie- mostly non-toxic from the ones I have worked with on multiple rotations. They have a SIM lab which seems helpful as well. Lots of different ICUs. Has some affiliation with RUSH for fellowship. Also qualifies for Public Student Loan Forgiveness as a public institution.
Cons: intense program, lots of social issues given a public hospital, some residents have big personalities given the fact that Cook is very competitive for IMGs and they all have extremely high board scores to match here. They just changed the setup of admissions in July I believe and most of the residents hate it: previously was admission on call days only, now they do a drip system where everyone admits everyday; seems to make the workload heavier. Unsure of work-life balance after this change. Cafeteria is SUPER expensive.
Swedish Covenant: Small community hospital. See bread and butter with occasional zebra patient. Attendings seem very friendly and the hospital overall has a chill vibe. The food is pretty solid in the cafeteria- once you find the cafeteria that is.
Pros: Free parking. Heard the rotation in the ICU is really good and they are great teachers there. Nursing staff seems friendly for the most part. Good variety of food options not too overpriced and I believe workers there get a discount.
Cons: 24(?) hour call, maybe longer. They are RIDICULOUSLY understaffed. I am not exaggerating: a resident came up to me with 3 different pagers on them when they were supposed to be on an elective with me. They had to cross-cover for two teams and held the RRT pager and had no senior- to me that is a red flag in a program but if you like autonomy you will absolutely get all the autonomy you can ask for and more. Just don't expect to have a consistent schedule; the resident on my elective with me ended up only being present for the elective half the time between call, post-call and cross-cover. As a medical student I was basically running the neurology department by myself one time as there is 1/1 neurologist available during the week and he does clinic during the day. Due to the under-staffing issues, residents treat medical students like their own personal documentation machines: I quote the resident with "thank god you guys are here to write all my notes for me!" in front of the attending. Hospital is also super old and very confusing at first. Also they have 2 MRI machines and seems like 1 is always broken; also seem to have frequent shortages of medications.
Riverside in Kankakee: A historically DO program I believe. Small community hospital in rural Kankakee with what I've understood to be an excellent Psychiatry program; psych residents are super nice. Has Cardiology and GI fellowships for now- all the fellows are very friendly and chill. Kankakee is about 1.5 hours southwest of Chicago.
Pros: Cardiologists and Gastro docs are very friendly. Cafeteria has decent variety of food. Have two "starbucks" on-site; only one has an espresso machine I think (?). Again heard multiple people say great things about the Psych program. Very friendly and organized GME department and free use of espresso maker in resident lounge.
Cons: 26 hour call. At least this year, seems to be one toxic senior who bullies the interns- I saw it first hand in the limited time I was with the IM residents. There is one cardiothoracic surgeon who believes he is God and will talk down to anyone and anything; he gives some lectures and you could hear a pin drop during his talks as he will stare everyone down and belittle you in front of everyone. Per one of the fellowship directors: "the IM residents here are consult-happy and don't try to figure out problems themselves first before consulting. Go somewhere else". Also Kankakee- there is nothing to do out there.
Mercy Health: I personally did not work with the IM residents at my time there so this is kind of a limited review caveat. Beautiful brand spanking new hospital called Javon Bea- definitely the nicest facility I've been to. Smaller rural community hospital in Rockford, which is about an hour west of Chicago; it is a level 1 trauma center. Met some of the IM attendings and they seemed very friendly. Cafeteria is really nice, has a great amount of options and the food is consistently good; always seem to have a vegetarian option.
Pros: new facility with all the bells and whistles. Have POCUS, Sim Lab. Use Epic. Rockford is a decent sized city outside of Chicago and has been building up in the past decade or two.
Cons: Fairly new IM program. I was with the FM inpatient team and their training was pretty incompetent so I am not 100% sure how the training is on the IM side but I will give the benefit of the doubt it is not the same. There is an amazing Med/Peds attending there. From their interview invite info, seems like a lot of time will be spent in outpatient PCP clinic as well (to me that's a con but maybe for others that's a plus). Parts of Rockford are really sketchy, above average amount of IV drug users out there.
Hope this helps! If anyone has reviews specifically on any Florida program as well please lmk- I am completely in the dark mostly on those.
