So its currently like 5:30 in the morning and I’m up on call, didn’t go to sleep. Its been a crazy time with plenty of trauma. This dude who was hyped up on meth put his hand through a glass window completely transecting his radial artery and many of his flexor muscles. If it was an orthpaedic service solely, they would have just left the bloody radial artery alone, fixed the muscles, and closed up because the ulnar artery provides the majority of the blood supply. However since I was on general surgery the surgeon decided to reanastomose the radial artery at 2:30 in the morning. And the worst part is that this surgeon is that classic cursing, rude, inpatient surgeon that you usually only see on TV. I just don’t see any reason to be rude to the anesthesiologiests, surgical techs, residents, or medstudents. But whatever, I’ve only got 1 more week on general surgery. After we reanastomosed the radial artery, then the orthopaedic service scrubed in to reconnect the flexor muscles and the superficial radial nerve (to prevent the formation of a neuroma). I got to stay scrubbed in for both cases and I definitely enjoyed the muscle reattachment more :-).
So since I’m on the topics of orthopaedics….I had basically narrowed down the schools that I wanted to do away rotations at to UMD, Georgetown, and Hopkins. I crossed out Union, despite it being a pretty great program because it was 6 years for no real reason. And I crossed out GW because of the serious trend of negative reviews about the program online. Finding out information about different orthopaedic programs is really tough because most of it is by word of mouth from 4th year students at your school or from reviews on Orthogate or SDN.
I was able to find out alot about UMD’s program from when I shadowed that UMD sports attending during my X-mas break. Finding out more about Hopkins took a little more work, but thankfully I was able to talk to an ortho attending at Hopkins. I had heard alot of bad things about Hopkins but the ortho attending basically gave me good info refuting most of that. My convo with an attending affiliated with a one of the other schools I was interested in (we will call it school X) was actually the most informative. The attending flat out told me to not waste an away rotation on school X. He told me that school X is the most undiverse…white male. program that he has ever seen, and they have no desire to make it any different. I’ve heard from other minority applicants on the interview trail that said that they got discouraged from ranking school X high because when they were at their interview, they looked at the wall of the graduating classes all the way back to the 60s and didn’t see one dark face. I know that someone has to be the first, but there is probably a reason why no one has been the first yet especially in an area as black as MD and DC. The attending also told me that they are quite proud of themselves and that all the other ortho residents (from school Y and school Z) can’t stand their guts because they are so cocky, for really no reason. The attending honestly couldn’t understand why school X had such a high view of their program when almost every ortho program is steller and they aren’t even in the top 1o programs, but none the less their pride is palpable. He had a hand in interviewing applicants to school X’s program, and he told me that even when very qualified minority applicants would interview, they would always find some small reason to rank a non-minority over that applicant. He told me that I have alot of options in the MD/DC area and that I should probably do an away rotation at a place who has a history of accepting minority applicants..at least one…and who won’t try to find some reason to accept a non-minority over me. I really appreciated the advice, although you can never fully trust opinions, but I appreciate it none the less. So after all of that I’ve decided to try to do away rotations at UMD or Hopkins. However, this weekend I plan on speaking with another attending about Hopkins to see if its more worth it to rotate there or at UVA. Both programs have a history of accepting minority applicants, but of course Hopkins is closer to home. Both are academic powerhouses. I guess I”ll just have to wait and see.
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