SUNY Brooklyn

Chairman & PD: William Urban
Location: Brooklyn, NY
Spots: 6

Reputation: Blue collar, "get your hands dirty" program with very busy residents. Overshadowed by most academic programs in NY.

Pros: Lots of autonomy at a county hospital where you learn by doing. High volume exposure to "bread and butter" Orthopaedics.  

Cons: Sink or swim type of program. Not much academic teaching goes on here. Few dedicated Ortho ORs. Little supervision. Residents are not all that happy and not all that tight. Disorganized hospital in bad neighborhood and clinics can be overrun with difficult and demanding patients.

Final Word: Weaker academic but very busy program with questionable reputation in NY. Be prepared to be overwhelmed and worked.

Chairman & PD: William Urban
Location: Brooklyn, NY
Spots: 6

Reputation: Blue collar, "get your hands dirty" program with very busy residents. Overshadowed by most academic programs in NY.

Pros: Lots of autonomy at a county hospital where you learn by doing. High volume exposure to "bread and butter" Orthopaedics.  

Cons: Sink or swim type of program. Not much academic teaching goes on here. Few dedicated Ortho ORs. Little supervision. Residents are not all that happy and not all that tight. Disorganized hospital in bad neighborhood and clinics can be overrun with difficult and demanding patients.

Final Word: Weaker academic but very busy program with questionable reputation in NY. Be prepared to be overwhelmed and worked.

Comments

[Downstate]

I am currently a resident at Downstate and wanted to add the following. I will start with the weaknesses first:
Very busy program with very little ancillary support
Some very unpleasant and lazy ancillary workers
Improving academic schedule but slowly improving
Not as strong as the other academic programs in NYC
Sick patients who often wait till it is too late (this can be a good thing because it allows for you to see complicated cases)
University hospital is old/dingy. KCH is modern and has some phenomenal operating rooms.

The good:
You are pretty much on your own- autonomy
You will be very trauma competent when you come out of here
Some very complicated fractures here from GSWs. Brooklyn is home to some pretty strong weapons in the hands of drug dealers including ak47s, rifles, etc
You usually have weekends off (1 weekend a month)
As an intern, you do a lot of ortho. We got to a private hospital where we have minimal floor duties and then operate all day. Our interns log 50-60 ortho cases in a 5 week rotation