"Great trauma experience, residents are happy, seem to be good pipelines into USC fellowships. Good clinical training." | More from this Member | Report Response

"PROS --Superb clinical training. Top heavy program where you work more hours as you go along. Start around 50-55 hours during CA-1 and hit 65-70 hours during CA-3. --1st year is at LA County where they take anyone and everyone. Like most county hospitals, amazing pathology because of the diversity and patients don't present till they're about to crump. CA-1 schedule looked unreal with residents off 3-4 weekends every month! I'm still not sure how this works but they said it's because of night float/weekend call. --CA-2 year is spread across various hospitals but pretty standard. 2 months ICU at Cancer Center with Dr. Thanga. It's an anesthesia run ICU. 2 months Cardiothoracic, 2 months Pain, 1 month Neuro in med center. 1 month OB at LA county, 1 month at Cedars Sinai. 2 months Pediatrics at CHLA. Apparently, CHLA, the #1 pediatric hospital on the west coast, is a USC hospital. I always thought it was UCLA. --all CA-3s REQUIRED to do 2 months of Advanced Cardiothoracic electives at University Hospital, 1 month Heart/Lung Transplant and 1 month Advanced Peds. CA-3 options/requirements - Vascular, Oncology OR, Regional, Pain, Research. They say optional but all the residents' schedules had a smattering of each so not sure how much flexibility there is. --Resident caliber extremely strong. Based on SDN, I went in expecting a land of FMGs and had yet another WTF moment. Multiple residents from UCLA, UTSW, Georgetown, Oregon, Miami, various Cali, NY schools, and half the residents were from USC. --Residents were very friendly and looked happy to be there. Maybe it's all that California sun. Openly talked about how much free time they had, none of that "it's just 3 years" or "residency is supposed to be hard" bull****. --Department is in great flux, good or bad I don't know. They got rid of a bunch of faculty and have hired 17 new attendings in the last year - they only have like 60-70 total. Most of them are fresh out of fellowship or former private practice guys who want a change of pace. Residents were very happy about this change. --1200 Cardiothoracic cases/year and only 1 fellow. Stanford had like 1900 but 3 fellows. Residents probably get used as cheap labor but sweet deal in sharpening your clinical acumen. --Surprisingly, one of the few places that has everything. Amazing trauma and transplant experience. All kinds of transplants, hearts, lungs, livers, kidneys. "Trauma, trauma, trauma" per one resident. So many top places are amazing at 2 or 3 things but have glaring defecits elsewhere. Besides critical care and maybe regional, can't think of anything here that is missing. --Per the Chair, they place more regional nerve blocks for ortho procedures and post-op pain relief than any other program in SoCal. --Very new, aesthetically pleasing hospitals. Probably 2nd best I've seen after Northwestern. Location not bad at all, 5 minutes from where the Lakers and Dodgers play. --USC as an institution seems to be on a stratospheric trajectory towards prominence. The undergrad recently topped UCLA in rankings and the medical center has apparently been stealing faculty left and right from places like MGH, Hopkins, Stanford, UCLA per the Dean's letters sent to USC med students." | More from this Member | Report Response

"University of Southern California - Brand new, beautiful facilities. Program has amazing network in SoCal = sweet private practice gig awaits you after residency. Very happy residents. Very laid back atmosphere. After Grand Rounds, attendings just started coming up to random applicants and struck up conversations. Dr. Lumb introducing all the applicants individually was a nice touch. Night-float during CA-1 = NO call + 3-4 weekends off for most of the year. Best hours in SoCal after Loma Linda...55-60 during CA-1, 65-70 during CA-2, CA-3. On interview day, applicants from USC thought very highly of the program (8-9 of last year's match were from USC, meaning those who know the program best and have rotated there want to stay). Weather, ocean, snow-capped mountains! In the midst of Snowmageddons, ice storms, below freezing weather in the rest of the country, it is sunny and 65 today in LA. You get 4 weeks vacation every year. Hospitals have EMR. Children's LA is staffed by USC. Decent pay, salary goes up $4000 every year." | More from this Member | Report Response

"I had one interview and one 10min talk with the PD. The interviewer hadn't looked at my file or info until the interview began." | More from this Member | Report Response

"CONS --Poorly run interview day, they need to just start over. Their itinerary definitely runs on Desi Standard Time. --Minimal research. They're very open about supporting you and giving you time off but it seems like you would have to do most of the leg work. --It's a hell of a lot cheaper since when I was an undergrad in LA a few years ago, but compared to the rest of the country, you definitely pay a price to live in sunny SoCal. --No internal moonlighting - there were whispers of OSH moonlighting though. --SRNA program. I didn't have the balls to call anyone out because I actually liked it here and didn't want them to judge me. Chair did seem pretty strong though. He was former Vice Chair at Duke, former Chair at some NY school, tons of accolades." | More from this Member | Report Response

"No moonlighting. Most residents take private practice over fellowships." | More from this Member | Report Response

"Final Impression - Not an elite program but an awesome program nonetheless. Definitely in my top 5." | More from this Member | Report Response

"After interviewing at some of the top programs in the country, I was torn whether to go with prestige or happiness. In the end, I feel that there is enough delayed gratification in medical training already and I refuse to delay it any longer. I am ranking USC extremely high." | More from this Member | Report Response

"The Bottom Line/Impression: A decidedly nonacademic program, good at some things, terrible at others, a gateway to LA private practice.<p> Lodging/Dinner: No hotel (nearby Best Western, though), night-before happy hour/snacks.<p> Schedule: Starts at 0645 and no one tells you if you can eat or not (apparently it was for faculty, so we didn’t eat, and most applicants didn’t get bagels/coffee even if they were for us…). Sit in on grand rounds where our presence is both unnecessary and disruptive. Rest of the day is a tour de conference rooms – over to one for the PD and chair to talk informally about the nitty-gritty (PD) and philosophy (chair). Chair makes a point of it being a Dept. of Anesthesiology not “Anesthesiology & CCM” or “Anesthesiology & Pain” but it was not at all clear why this is good. Seems like a solid dude but he had to run off to be chief medical officer (!). 2 conference rooms later, lunch on a table that looked like it’d been greased up with butter and was so shiny you could see yourself in it. Weird. The coordinator was trying her heart out but the day was disorganized nonetheless. You only have 1 proper interview (called by random order), everyone also sees Dr. Patel (PD, again, in random order with no itinerary) for 5-15 minutes depending on how long you can tolerate silence between questions. No kidding.<p> Program Info: 18 residents a year, all advanced. Cardiac, pain, and peds fellowships only. You cover LA County (“LAC+USC”), University (the private hospital), Norris cancer hospital, and go to LA Children’s for peds. Notably: no overnight call Sun-Thurs; Friday is regular 24-hour call and Saturdays is 12-hr shifts. This is due to weekday nightfloat.<p> Pros: It’s in LA. You have an exceptional trauma and transplant experience and see everything from celebrities to homeless crackheads. New LAC+USC hospital opened in November 2008 and looks amazing. LAC+USC and University are being bought by USC from Tenet – good or bad I don’t know. Residents were friendly for the most part, were apparently majority Asian, seemed to hang out a lot with each other, were a tad informal for my taste on an interview day. Placement into LA private practice is a done deal – huge alumni network in the region.<p> Cons: Do not come here if you see fellowships and/or academia in your future. No – and I mean zero – research. In the past 2 years, 6/36 grads have done fellowships, rest straight into PP in LA area. It’s in a sh*tty unsafe part of LA. Traffic. The weakest ICU I’ve seen – they cover an 8-bed post-surg-onc ICU as the consultant team. Why even bother at that point. One of the interviewers apparently pimps everyone and has for decades, but still – is that really necessary? " | More from this Member | Report Response