University of Pennsylvania Program Individual Response

What is your in-state status?:

Out of state

On what date did the interview take place?:

2/1/2009

How do you rank this residency among ALL other residencies?:

6 out of 10

How do you rank this residency among other residencies to which you've applied?:

4 out of 10

What is your ranking of this program's facilities?:

9 out of 10

What is your ranking of this program's location?:

9 out of 10

What is your ranking of this area's cultural life?:

9 out of 10

What was the stress level of the interview?:

2 out of 10

How do you think you did?:

9 out of 10

How did the interview impress you?:

Negatively

How long was the interview?:

15 minutes

How many people interviewed you?:

3

What was the style of the interview?:

One-on-one

What impressed you positively?:

--Brand new stand-alone rehab hospital is in a great part of Philadelphia and will help centralize this program in the future. --New SCI and TBI attendings have been hired to help develop these new services for the program. They will no longer have to send all of these patients to Magee and Moss respectively. --Graduates get well-respected AGCME Pain and Sports/Spine fellowships on par with the elite PM&R programs --PD is clearly interested in the education of his residents and is an advocate for them and the program --Dr. Larry Chou is an adjunct faculty and lectures occasionally. --Has unique system of video consults while on call w/ critical-care/intensivists able to view patients and monitors in patient rooms --PD seems committed to changing program for the better --Support for research --Didactics done in blocks by subject, instead of mish-mosh at many other programs --4/6 spots are categorical - a pro or con depending on what you're looking for, but apparently 1/2 advanced spots are already spoken for and PD clearly stated he prefers categorical spots. Residents seemed pleased with intern year. Report as inappropriate

What impressed you negatively?:

--Dr. Slipman is on an undisclosed "leave of absence" and the other prominent interventionalist at Radnor has left for HSS. They are in the process of recruiting replacements. --Regarding EMG's, residents stated they get over 200, but they are predominately the bread and butter variety as most rare pathology is seen by the Neurologists who are highly protective of their emg's at UPENN --Most residents stated that the Penn name played a very large role in their rank decision --No on-site x-rays or doplers, so all patients needing them will be transferred out. This is unlikely to change in future because (per chief res) it is not cost-effective. --PM&R resident on call covers 38-bed LTACH unit from 7pm-7am in addition to rehab patients --Residents spend 3 months at Good Shepard in Allentown during PGY-4- they have housing there for you --PD made several negative comments about Temple/Moss and Jeff/Magee. This was the only program I interviewed at where I witnessed something like that. --Several residents made it very clear that to match their you have to tell the PD you will rank them #1, as he is very, very proud of getting the people on the top of his rank list. PD also stated that if he has 20 or so top candidates, the ones who show the most interest will get ranked higher --41 calls during PGY-2, mostly weekends --On-call resident and/or another resident does consults as they come in on Sat/Sun (though not a ton) Report as inappropriate

How was your interview day? Please summarize.:

--The day starts w/ applicants being brought into a conference room w/ nametags next to their seats at the center table and all the residents sitting along the border of the room in chairs. Chairman then asks applicants questions about some aspects of their application that he found interesting and asks that give a roughly 1 min answer to all those in the room. Some were cut off in the middle of speaking so he could correct them about a perceived inaccuracy in their answer, pimp them or make a teaching point to the group. Definitely unique and not for those who don’t like being on the spot unexpectedly, but it was clear that he had read our applications as the questions were very personalized. --This program has tons of potential and the resources to pull off being elite in the future. However, in my opinion, it does not yet provide the level of excellent and well-rounded training available at the other Philly programs (Temple and Jeff) or other highly regarded programs such as Spaulding, RIC, Kessler, Mayo, UWash, UMich, etc. Report as inappropriate

What was your primary mode of travel?:

Automobile

What was your total time spent traveling?:

2-3 hours

Where did you stay?:

Friends or family