California, Wisconsin, and Colorado

I just got back from my first interview at the University of Wisconsin.

But before I go into that, I should explain a couple of things about the California programs I applied to. First, you have to understand that I have sincere interest in only about 2-3 programs, but the price of applying to 10 residencies is the same as applying to one. So, I added a bunch just for fun. Some of those were a few in California and the Northwest. It was a surprise to me that I got an interview at UCSD -- not a big surprise that I was turned down at Univ of Washington and that I haven't heard anything back from Stanford. Let's face it, I'm not the "IV league" style kind of guy -- I like my work, I do my job well, and I'm pretty good with my patients -- but I'm not the serious researcher/academic. That's just not my thing. Do I enjoy a little clinical research? Sure. I like mixing things up. Do I want to base my entire career around research? No. If that were the case I would have gone to graduate school.

My point is: These schools are big research driven school, where the residents are self-selected to be the kind of folks who want to be leaders in their academic fields and make awesome discoveries and write grants and publish papers.

I want to be a clinician-educator. I definitely want to stay close to academic medicine, but not because of the research. I want to be in academic research to teach interested learners, to improve medical education, and influence patient care in that regard. I think I have a talent in this area that needs to be developed -- and I would be remiss to give this up in order to go to program that was maybe more "prestigious," but lacked the ability to formally meet my career goals.

Also, California is screwed up. Bad economy and ridiculous housing costs. Why would I want to move my family there to rent an outrageously priced two bedroom apartment, when I could stay in the Midwest and buy a two story home?

So, I canceled my California interviews. I don't want to waste their time and I definitely don't want to waste my money traveling.

And now onto Wisconsin.

Madison, Wisconsin is a beautiful little place about 3 hours Northeast of Iowa City. It's an hour west of Milwaukee, and maybe about two hours northwest of Chicago. The downtown area and University campus sit on the shores of calm, icy blue Lake Monoma. Despite the air being crisp, there are a lot of people walking around the downtown streets and riding their bicycles to the campus. A couple of sailboats appear floating serenely on the lake as I watched them from the window of my hotel room. The city was obviously bigger than Iowa City, but nothing I would call a bustling Metropolis.

The hospital was excellent. Appeared new, well kept, and well staffed. It's hallways seamlessly attached to the VA Hospital, the Medical Education Building, and the Health Sciences Library. The VA was so nice, it made our VA look like it was falling apart.

The program director was soft spoken but eloquent in his description of the program. In a few words: the program was rigorous, thorough, diverse, and family-oriented. He stated that his philosophy was that everything you do as a physician must make sense within the context of what is going on at home -- what is happening with your family life, and that no honor or award in the workplace would ever amount to the same importance as what you needed to achieve in the home with your family.

I did a double take. I would have thought this guy LDS were it not for his unabashedly large orthodox Jewish beard and lengthy hair descending to the middle of his back, tied in a thin braid.

The day proceeded with tours and explanations, marketing and questions, expensive cuisine and small talk.

I had three interviews. None of them should be called interviews. A better way to describe them would be, "sales pitches." They were opportunities for me to ask a couple of questions about how the University of Wisconsin could meet my needs, and 40 minutes of answering. I felt that my application was an afterthought. It was almost as if they didn't even care what my name was, they just wanted to know what they needed to say to persuade me that their program was a good fit for me.

I'm not sure how I feel about this experience. Were they personable? Sure. But I guess I was expecting them to use pieces of my application as a springboard to discuss these topics. I think I needed more of a personal touch during at least one of the three interviews.

Overall, it seemed to be a very good program within an excellent, family-oriented community. Do they offer anything I can't receive at Iowa? I don't think so. Maybe a few marginal things. Are the benefits of relocating and leaving a community of which I'm quite fond worth the cost to me and my family? I really don't think so.

I was very appreciative of the opportunity to visit their program and would highly recommend it to anyone who was interest. The residents all seemed very, very pleased and appeared to be of a high caliber.

Oh, yeah . . . Colorado. I haven't purchased plane tickets and they are now more than $600 for the timeframe in which I need them. I need to evaluate if I'm serious about interviewing there, because they don't provide hotel accomodations (unlike Wisconsin) and the trip could get very expensive.

Looking forward to seeing what Utah it like this Friday.