William Beaumont Royal Oak

Chairman & PD : Harry Herkowitz
Location: Royal Oak, MI
Spots: 4

Reputation: Another good community program in Michigan known for excellent facilities and good staff in all specialties.

Pros: Sizeable staff (42 attendings) given size of residency. Good coverage of all specialties including spine, pediatrics, tumor and foot & ankle. Excellent, state of the art, facilities.

Cons: Community program with questionable academic & didactics.

Small town, not much going on, but it is affordable.

Final Word: Good private community program strong all around.

Website: http://www.beaumonthospitals.com/pls/portal30/site.web_pkg.page?xpageid=gme_res_orth

Interview Dates:

If you are a student, resident, attending or have recently rotated, please feel free to post any information, additions, changes, or comments.

Comments

[Brick Tamland]

Rotated at Beaumont and am a current resident as well. Kind of an unknown place outside of the midwest, but that's changing (see the current US News & World Report hospital rankings). We have 4 residents a year and are currently applying for more. There are many social gatherings the residents have for each other, and it's just a real good group of people. Most are married, though there is definitely a handful of single guys, unlike many programs. Intern year encompasses 3 months of ortho, trauma sx, peds sx, vascular sx, plastics, rheum, ER, anesthesia, MICU, SICU. Your white coat states: Dept. of Orthopaedic Surgery, so you don't have to be embarrassed by people thinking you're a general surgeon. As a 2, you spend half the year on trauma, 3 mo on joints, and 3 mo on peds, call is Q6. The call is very light the further you get in your training, and there are very few solo calls. Almost everyone pursues a fellowship, and having Dr. Herkowitz as a chairman definitely facilitates that process.

The hospital itelf is unbelievable--this is a private hospital with a ton of money, and you will be hard pressed to find nicer facilities anywhere else--there are apx. 20 ORs dedicated to just ortho. It's also the second busiest ER in the US, so calls are great learning opportunities, and can be very busy in the summer. There is a brand new state of the art surgical skills lab, in addition to an orthopaedic research lab. All specialties are covered, and there are so many attendings that many cases go unscrubbed on a daily basis. I have never seen a case with more than an attending + resident.

There are daily morning conferences with many more learning opportunities here than I experienced at any other program during the "away rotation" process. Overall, the program takes great care of its residents, and a sincere effort is made to ensure ortho residents don't get dumped on while off service.

In terms of being a 4th year med student rotating here, this is a great rotation. You will spend a week on the trauma, joints, and spine services, but have free range to go into any OR's cases for that day. The hospital has provided housing for rotators, free of cost. Rotators who work hard and get along with the residents tend to fare well when it comes to matching.

In terms of "the bad," most people look at Detroit itself. Beaumont is most definitely not in Detroit, and in fact, is in a great suburb with an active nightlife/bar scene with plenty to do. Downtown Detroit is about a 15 minute drive from Royal Oak, and though not on par with NY, Chicago, Miami, LA, etc, it has all major professional sports teams, great concert venues, and casinos.

[jbone]

I agree with the first comment posted under the Beaumont link (same program).

I do disagree with a couple of the statements above. First of all Royal Oak is not a "small town." It's smack in the middle of a 5 million+ metropolitan area, it is not urban like downtown chicago or new york, but it is far from small town. You name it, it's within a 15 minute drive from there.

Also, the didactics at Beaumont are very impressive. I found there was more emphasis on formal teaching there than the academic programs I encountered. However, it is true that the program does not have a strong academic reputation outside of spine.

[lurker]

hate to tell you but beaumont is NOT EVEN CLOSE to the second busiest ER in the country. Look at the numbers on FRIEDA on ama-assn.org. While they do have a busy ER (115k/yr), I can think of at least ten (confirmed by FRIEDA) other programs that just off the top of my head have a higher ER volume. Does this matter? Probably not but its never a good idea to spread inaccurate info. FYI the busiest (as far as visits/yr) ER had over 300k visits last year (Florida Hospital in orlando) and another in miami had over 200k. Also remember that visits does not always equal acuity or amount of ortho volume. For all I know the busiest one could have all MI and bowel obstruction pts.

[Mhamill]

Agree with above information but would certainly add that there is very little independent operative experience. There is a lot of time spent watching surgeries even in senior years. I have heard the reputation of it being a great community program but disagree. I rotated at several community programs and beumont was the only one that did not let the residents operate. As a med student it is not the best learning rotation. Consider rotating there and see for your self before you blindly believe what the residents tell you. Prior to the rotation it was near the top of my list and following the rotation it fell off my rank list completly.