Subj : Re: Working in a (real) ER To : alt.tv.er From : Sharon Three Date : Mon Oct 03 2005 03:32:56 From Newsgroup: alt.tv.er wrote in message news:1128273917.837110.276110@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com... > npardue@indiana.edu wrote: >> [...] >> But the other thing is that, in the early years, County WAS shown as >> being a leader. It drew top doctors -- Mark and Susan were clearly >> VERY capable residents. We were told time and again that the surgical >> program anyway was one of the top ones in the country. [...] >> >> But then suddenly, by around S9, we're told that County is a crappy >> place where nobody REALLY wants to work ... Pratt is thrilled to get a >> resident slot at Northwestern, and Luka can't understand why Gallant >> would choose to here. They get stuck with below-the-bottom-of-the- >> barrel residents like Morris and Howard because, apparently, they can't >> find anyone better. They have trouble finding new attendings to replace >> those who've left, leaving the ER horribly understaffed. > > > Is it possible that a hospital in a major urban area would attract > students eager to do serious procedures far more than it would attract > more experienced doctors? Students need experienced docs to teach, so any hospital that doesn't have experienced docs wouldn't be certified to teach students. Med schools have rules about this. So does the government, which doesn't pay for any work done by a med student, or even a resident unless an attending is in the room and directly supervising. Would a typical medical student be more > attracted to such a hospital, or is it simply that the major medical > schools are in such locations? > Probably both. Only hospitals as large as County have enough patients, as well as residents, to take students on a regular basis. In real life, most teaching hospitals are affiliated with a single med school and most med schools provide their students with a choice of maybe half a dozen nearby facilities where they can do their clinical rotations. First, the student decides where he/she would like to do the major rotations and can change hospitals with each one, every 4-6 weeks. Then, he/she can sometimes choose a subspecialty to do within that rotation. For example, on Surgery, I was required to do one month of General Surgery, then an elective month of 2 week rotations on subspecialty services. I ended up with Neurosurgery and Pediatric Cardiothoracic. ER wouldn't be a major rotation, but wouldn't have the subspecialty choices either. When I was choosing, I chose Mount Carmel Hospital in Columbus rather than OSU simply because it was in a worse part of the city and there was much more trauma there. A 'knife and gun club' in the vernacular. OSU's hospital is mainly surrounded by the campus and then some relatively middle class neighborhoods, not nearly as good a patient mix for a student. BTW, despite the rep, I didn't see even a tiny fraction of the stuff we see on ER every week. They compress about a month's worth of 'big cases' into a single eppy. Doc Sharon .