| Interview Information / Experience: | We were made to stay in a great inn to called ''stoneycreek inn'' very nice and cozy rooms,went to pre-interview dinner at 7:00 pm and was surprised to find clinical director and programme director in the dinner!!!!.
Residents seemed happy,but i was surprised that despite having stellar candidates among IMG'S both chief residents were US grads-guess situation(and one of them a DO) is no more different in other hospitals in USA,overall much less scutwork and third years get time to study for boards.
PD was lamenting that the quality of US grads applying to IM residency is going downhill but IMG'S goin up.
Down to earth person,promising everyone he met that he will be ranking them high,so dont know how true his statements are!!!. But residents seemed happy,it is true that they r sponsoring less H1B this year and most i suspect will end up with J1 as PD told me.But he said that since i already have step-3 they shud not have much problem in getting H1b,now did he say that so that i rank them high i dont know.
Well the day started with a presentation by a clerkship manager about the city of columbia and the university,Columbia is an inexpensive place to live in and most residents have bought a house,and cost of a townhouse may be as low as 50,000 dollors i was told!!! then one group started with hospital tour andother with interviews,i had hospital tour first up,nice hospial and the touring resident told us that VA hospital is bit of a crap to work in,and patient load is quite tolerable and overall programme is resident friendly,however the main hospital itself is very nice,and one extra bit of info is that residents get atleast 1 day off in one week,and night floats are not a all bad since it has been split into 15 days calls followed a some days off.
50% end up in fellowship( i thought it would be more!!!) and 50% go other way semed bit low for a university!! But i liked the hospital as such,teemed with Indian IMG's,because no AMG wants to come here since it is a small town,it has a small airport but belive me it is very small and only AA flies into and out of it-and u all know how arrogant AA staff are,i stopped flying with them after two horrible experiences,however u can easilyreach columbia either from kansas or st lousi by greyhound or by moexpress-greyhound is cheapest,but driving using a rental car shud be cheaper,try it out.
A small town with a decent university,and good teaching,but nothing stellar about it.
Ok,my first interview was with Ass. PD Dr.Brookes who was a PD last year,he was kinda nice(too nice and naive to evryone i mean) and i happened to wait outside when he was promising another candidate that they will rank him high, and u guessed right he said same to me- he loves cricket (strange for an american!!) and he likes Hindu God Ganesha and tales associated with him!! THEN I HAD ANOTHER INTERVIEW THIS TIME WITH pd,HE SAID I HAVE TERRIFIC RECO LETTERS BLAH BLAH....,and he was impressed with my research and i would be an assett to the programme.
Then a nice mexican dinner--god am loving this mexican food they have such a variety,wow it tasted as good as any indian curry.
Then came another interview with chief resident and she was tried after interviewing all the candidates it went well.
None asked medical questions.
No prematches offered.
Oh before i end forgot to tell u guyz about other opportunities,some basic research is going on but more of clinical research and they have had 100% success with rescue angioplasties post stemi's.
And basic research(bench) is done only on small scale butunlike in CWRU u donot need greencard to getinto research position here,thats a plus point.
Then back to stoney creek inn in a van.
Pros: a uuniversity hospital/decent teaching/nice people-looked after us well/inexpensive place to live
cons: only 50% go into fellowship/mostly j1 visa this year/rural setup/i would go to abetter university on j1 than coming into columbia.
But i would stillbe ranking this programme though not within top three!!!.
I will try and write about Univ of mississippi and CWRU soon.
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