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houston
#1
Was looking into the houston programs - I have a lot of family there and am interested in potentially moving back. Heard UT Houston was malignant AF but don't know if that's true. Looked into Methodist but it seems like they are missing a lot of residents. No PGY-5s, only 1 chief, a couple others missing in a 3/year program. Anyone know what's up with that? My home chair said the faculty is super sketchy there. Should I just look into Baylor?

Any insight is appreciated. Thanks
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#2
(05-08-2019, 08:42 PM)Guest Wrote: Was looking into the houston programs - I have a lot of family there and am interested in potentially moving back. Heard UT Houston was malignant AF but don't know if that's true. Looked into Methodist but it seems like they are missing a lot of residents. No PGY-5s, only 1 chief, a couple others missing in a 3/year program. Anyone know what's up with that? My home chair said the faculty is super sketchy there. Should I just look into Baylor?

Any insight is appreciated. Thanks

Baylor is the best option although the operative experience is lacking because of the amount of ICU coverage you'll have to do. I wouldn't Sub-I at the other places. If you're interested in Texas, UTSW is the best option b/c Batjer writes great letters and the OR time is heavy.
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#3
(05-09-2019, 11:21 AM)Guest Wrote:
(05-08-2019, 08:42 PM)Guest Wrote: Was looking into the houston programs - I have a lot of family there and am interested in potentially moving back. Heard UT Houston was malignant AF but don't know if that's true. Looked into Methodist but it seems like they are missing a lot of residents. No PGY-5s, only 1 chief, a couple others missing in a 3/year program. Anyone know what's up with that? My home chair said the faculty is super sketchy there. Should I just look into Baylor?

Any insight is appreciated. Thanks

Baylor is the best option although the operative experience is lacking because of the amount of ICU coverage you'll have to do. I wouldn't Sub-I at the other places. If you're interested in Texas, UTSW is the best option b/c Batjer writes great letters and the OR time is heavy.

Those kind of responses readers should avoid. I presume the poster is a clueless resident or an aspiring med student. UTSW is not the best option and it's just a dead program that revived when Batjer joined- to retire there- then back to death soon. Batjer doesn't write great letters. There is a difference between long letters and great letters. Batjer does use code words in his letters though.
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#4
(05-13-2019, 12:35 AM)Guest Wrote:
(05-09-2019, 11:21 AM)Guest Wrote:
(05-08-2019, 08:42 PM)Guest Wrote: Was looking into the houston programs - I have a lot of family there and am interested in potentially moving back. Heard UT Houston was malignant AF but don't know if that's true. Looked into Methodist but it seems like they are missing a lot of residents. No PGY-5s, only 1 chief, a couple others missing in a 3/year program. Anyone know what's up with that? My home chair said the faculty is super sketchy there. Should I just look into Baylor?

Any insight is appreciated. Thanks

Baylor is the best option although the operative experience is lacking because of the amount of ICU coverage you'll have to do. I wouldn't Sub-I at the other places. If you're interested in Texas, UTSW is the best option b/c Batjer writes great letters and the OR time is heavy.

Those kind of responses readers should avoid. I presume the poster is a clueless resident or an aspiring med student. UTSW is not the best option and it's just a dead program that revived when Batjer joined- to retire there- then back to death soon. Batjer doesn't write great letters. There is a difference between long letters and great letters. Batjer does use code words in his letters though.

If I am a med student then who are you? the neurosurgery god? You're probably butter that UTSW didnt take you
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#5
butter indeed
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#6
This is from a few years ago so I don't know how it is now. UT Houston I thought was a great experience. Operatively heavy for Sub-I's. Rotated on Spine, Chief service (Kim/Day) peds/functional, and maybe an elective. My time there was great in that I was able to scrub with the operating resident for the majority of the case until an attending came for the critical portion of the procedure. Although there are some malignant characters there it wasn't any worse than any other place. It can be a bit tough for the residents there, but most seemed happy enough. I cannot comment on Methodist or Baylor, but I have heard great things from medical students from my institution who rotated there or medical students from there who interviewed. UTSW is also a great program to Sub I. Batjer is a nice guy and does write good letters. Along the same lines as Yosher, Day, and Kim. All fairly generic but it's good to have their letter. It's all about name... at least that my impression from reading LOR's for the last fews years. (Almost every big name person writes the same thing for everyone)

Again, as has been mentioned in other posts as a SUB-I your job is to show up, be present and attentive and answer the few questions that are asked of you. No one is expecting you to be good at operating... Because you won't be. No one expects you to function like a resident/intern... because you're not. This is an opportunity to get an inside look at the specialty. Once you match you will realize that there is no comparison for your SUB-I to how it's like being an actual resident. Which is good.

Enjoy your time where ever you go. Be attentive, watch what others do, enjoy the people you meet along the way. Go to places you think you may want to go to places you just want to live for a month. I did that and I enjoyed my rotations. I met some great people who I still keep in touch with.

Hope this helps
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#7
Guest
butter indeed

U margarine bro?
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#8
Any updates on this after the interview season? Was any particular program more impressive than the rest
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#9
UT Houston is the youngest but has the strongest vascular and trauma presence. They're probably only going to get even better. UTSW in Dallas is probably better than all the Houston ones though. More well-known and less competition
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#10
I rotated at UT Houston this year. Overall, I would rate the experience low and the program was low on rank list as a result.

Pros: The program has grown fast. It is only about 10 years old and is now taking 3 residents per year. Research opportunities are good as well. One of the faculty recently received an R25 grant which he will be able to distribute to neurology and neurosurgery residents to support their research projects. They have several faculty who specialize in open and endovascular. I saw several open vascular procedures while I was there. Dr. Day is very dedicated to resident education and teaching His didactics are generally very good. UTH offers enfolded fellowships in several specialties. They had the best peds experience of any of my rotations, if that is your thing. They have excellent operative volume with typically around 6-7 first start rooms each day. Some of the residents let me do quite a bit in the OR. They interview rotators during the sub-I to save students travel costs during the interview season.

Cons: Parking is a disaster. Most rotators end up paying $13 per day to park in visitor parking because there are no other tenable options. That ends up costing over $300 just in parking fees. During the 4 week rotation you will spend one dedicated week in clinic in addition to a few scattered days with whichever service you are on the other weeks. They try to spin it as giving you exposure to more faculty, but in my opinion, it is a poor use of time for a visiting student to spend 1/4 weeks dedicated to clinic. Also, their call system is confusing and terrible. They use a night float system so there is always a resident in house. There is also a PA in- house on weeknights. However, residents are also required to answer pages from home at night regarding their assigned service and come in if there is an issue with one of their patients. It isn’t clear to me why that is necessary. It seems that it could be handled by the in-house resident and PA, with help from the senior back up if things get crazy. Students are not allowed to be present for morning sign out. Apparently one of their students reported the residents for comments that made during the sign out, so their solution was to ban students. It is nearly impossible to stay up to date on patient events as a student, sign out is generally the best time to find out what is going on. Also, it just makes the program not feel very welcoming. The residents were fairly malignant towards each other. There were a couple that were singled out and picked on and/or talked about behind their backs regularly. The residents were also pretty nervous/scared to operate with the chair and PD. More so than I had seen at other programs. One of the biggest red flags was that I witnessed two residents intentionally lie about intraoperative findings to the chair.
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