As always these are my views. You may agree or not. Just here to provide one opinion
Summary:
2 day experience. First day is tours of University of Washington Hospital and Childrens (really nice!)
plus dinner with the residents. We ate at a very nice sushi place. Second day is all interviews.
Executive Summary of What I will describe in more detail for thsoe with ADD:
Overall I was truely blown away by “UW” as they call it up in the Pacific Northwest. Dr. Ellenbogen was a gentleman and the residents seems academically oreinted, busy, but happy. I would think this isn’t a program for everyone though, as you must to like (or be able to tolerate) trauma and like open-vascular as this is the lions-share of what is seen during the residency program.
Pros-
Very busy services at all 3 hospitals but Harborview hospital seems to be the epicenter of this residency program
Their census was “only 60” at the time of my interview and it was a good experience to see them round in the morning
on that many patients so quickly (although it was super early after a late night!)
One year of research and one year in England. Dr. Ellenbogen seemed very flexible to allow you to pursue your research interests, be that at the bench (a few MD PhD in the program) or more clinically oriented research. I spoke with one resident that is gettin an MPH during the research year instead of formal bench research.
England year (couldn’t figure if you went when you were a PGY4 or PGY 5...but it was one of those years) seemed to beloved by all the residents, although it is not a requirement. Some residents do a sort of “infolded fellowship” type thing instead of England. However most go to England and the 3 or 4 I spoke to about it had high praise and the junior resients I spoke to about it were looking forward to it. Seems to be “bread and butter” neurosurgery cases over there (Spine, periph nerve, trauma, some tumor, some aneursym clipping, shunts) but you do it all by yourself with minimal supervision
Seattle seems like a really fun city, especially if youre into hiking/fishing (or shopping). It did not ran much when
I was there but one of my classmates who went just recently said it was pouring the whole time. Beautiful when i was
there though. Water everywhere if your into sailing or water sports. Godo food scene I am told.
Residents seemed really outgoing and personable. Seemed close to each other. Spoke extensivly with a few junior residents and a couple of senior residents. They would all “do it again” if they had to go back (a favorite question of mine).
Huge vascular, skull base and trauma volume, something like 25% of the USA land mass (or 10million people-ish) are
refered here for level I tramua. Tumor and epilespy (they do awake carniotomy fairly often) seems fairly large too.
Just implemented an endovascular rotation of PGY4s (yes, all residents do endovascular!) that deals with both endovascualrly trained neruosurgeons as well as the IR folks
Neutral
7yrs instead of the old 8 (dropepd a research year)
Seemed to allude to a publication requirement although this was not confirmed by everyone
Not a lot of functional or Gammaknife; moderate spine (combined ortho/neurosurg spine team)
3 hospitals requires a far amount of driving. All are within 5miles of each other though.
Expected to go into academics after graduation (told this point blank during 3 ov my interviews)
Cheifs, I am told, can operate extremely well in OR. However all cheifs are encouraged to pursue fellowships to make them more competitive in academic jobs
Cons
Trauma (if you don’t like it)
Junior year at Harborview is refered to as the most difficult year by most (work-hour wise)
Despite having Dr. Sekhar it doesn’t seem like there is a formal skull base lab teaching session. A few reidents told me that there was a skull base lab but it wasn’t shown on the tour.
