Hershey Med Neurosurg?

[Brainboy]

Any thoughts on Herhsey's neurosurgery program? Like the area, had an opportunity to speak with some current students/residents/attendings and liked all of my interactions. Seems like a decent program I would be happy at. Harbaugh stepping down is sad but he seems like he deserves it and I felt confident in the attends I spoke with.

[Guest]

Rotated here in the last couple years and had an overall positive experience. Your experience as a SubI would obviously be different with new leadership/residents.

Pros: Didactics and research infrastructure are very strong. Residents seemed comfortable with current neurosurgical literature and with prep for oral boards. Great attendings who are actually good at teaching and mentoring. Rizk, Zacharia, Dias, Cockcroft, Zacko come to mind. The resident group and camaraderie were solid as well especially among the juniors at the time. Also had representation in subspecialties such as functional/pain and peripheral that you may not have other some other places. I felt like I learned the most neurosurgery during this rotation albeit it was my first SubI.

Cons: Junior residency seemed more difficult here than the other subis I did in terms of covering both peds and adult consults/pager by nature of the hospital system. The operative experience isn’t as robust or autonomous as the other few west coast/midwest urban programs I rotated at. It may be an east coast thing, idk. Spine volume isn’t great (if that’s your forte) because Ortho spine here is strong and seems to take some of the more complex deformity and bread and butter cases as well. They were also starting this guaranteed program for undergrads to get accepted into the program while I was there which only allows 2/3 spots to be viable for matching into.