12-26-2016, 06:55 PM
Thought I'd post about my experience at the Barrow and regarding recent rumors about the chairmanship. The overall rotation was the best I've been on so far. It's tailored to get med students in the OR as much as possible. The day begins with rounds at 6 and you're expected to present 2 patients. Then you spend the rest of the day in the ORs until cases are done. Volume was impressive. 11 dedicated OR's with an average of over 20 cases per day - the lightest day I saw was 10 cases because half of the attendings were out of town. The residents have tremendous autonomy and it shows is how good they are in the OR. Most of the 4/5's were doing complex cases comfortably that I've seen chief residents at other centers just watch their attendings do. During the cases, the residents and attendings also teach you to do a lot as a med student beyond just opening/closing like placing spinal instrumentation and helping out under the scope. Despite being so busy, the residents were extremely nice, patient, and just positive - you could tell that they were happy to be training there and it really contributes a lot to the culture. The residents and staff were also very open about the recent leadership changes - Theodore leaving for hopkins and spetzler stepping down. Its now confirmed that Lawton will be taking over after Spetzler steps down. They're also interviewing several big name spinal guys, a lot of deformity and minimally invasive names to fill in for Theodore's role. Even with these changes, I think the BNI is still going to continue being the powerhouse that it is.
