Program Name: St. Joseph Medical Center (Houston, TX)
General Program/Hospital Info:
Large hospital system with the main hospital in downtown Houston. You work with attendings affiliated with the hospital and outside providers.
Attendings:
As a student you will mainly rotate with Dr. Randy and Gary Lepow, Neville, Miller, and a new attending that they just added on from JPS. All of the attendings are nice and great to be with. Dr. Gary can be very intimidating and rude at times, but he seems to have eased up a little since I rotated. None of the attendings pimp very much aside from Dr. Gary who asks a lot of questions, but I thought they were relatively easy. Dr. Gary will have you do a "full work up" of one of his clinic patients and be sure to get everything (PMH, meds, PSxH, etc) or he will rip you a new one.
Residents:
They take 4 residents per year. They scrambled the year prior to mine, but filled all of their spots this year. The residents are not a very tight-knit group and typically only communicate and hang out inside the hospital. They are nice and I enjoyed working with them. They are very honest about the program and will answer every question you ask them.
Didactics:
This program does a lot of afternoon academics. They have weekly case presentations, board review, and journal review 3-4 days a week from 6-7ish PM. This was a major turn off for me. Students are responsible for presenting one journal review and one case presentation.
OR Experience:
As a student my OR was very minimal. I scrubbed two cases the whole month. Most of it was spent shadowing in the OR and I did not see any big cases, the majority were bunions, pus, and other smaller elective cases. Dr. Miller does a little more rearfoot and non-emergent trauma. I am not sure about the new attending from JPS, but I expect he will bring more of this to the program. One thing that really turned me off from the program was that the residents are very hands off in the OR. I saw a second year resident who struggled to close skin.
Clinic Experience:
Clinic as a student is pretty much shadowing as well. You will trim some toenails here and there and debride a wound here and there with Dr. Randy, but that is about it. All shadowing with Dr. Miller and all shadowing with Dr. Neville.
Research Opportunities:
There are research opportunities especially in wound care with Dr. Randy.
Lifestyle:
As far as work schedule goes I would say it is pretty average and fluctuates depending on, which attending you are with. The afternoon didactics is really what made me not enjoy the lifestyle as much.
Pros:
Dr. Neville and Dr. Miller are both great at what they do and have great connections for job prospects after residency. There are good research opportunities. A heavy focus on didactics may be a plus for some who like that. They just recently brought in a new attending from JPS that will hopefully allow the residents more hands on experience and big cases, so long as he runs things like they do at JPS. I think they do a good job of teaching residents how to run a private practice.
Cons:
A decent amount of driving to different locations. Very hands off in the OR as a lot of these patients are attendings private practice patients. A lot of didactics that are in the afternoon.
Overall Conclusion:
I think there are better programs out there to rotate at as far as learning as a student and matching at a program go. I cannot recommend spending a month here.