Program Name: Yale New Haven Hospital, New Haven CT
General Program/Hospital Info: Covers Yale (York St.) main hospital, Yale's St. Raphel's, VACT, and 9+ surgery centers and more.
Attendings: Dr. Vyce is the residency director, Dr. Riveria is the director at the VACT, Dr. Peter Blume, Dr. Gazes, and other many younger attendings who are previous graduates of this program all bring in high surgical volume.
Residents: 5 per year. There is very little attending oversight and since pod is a primary service there are so many inpatients. 3rd years still take call because the program is too busy otherwise. Residents have incredible hand skills, are very smart, and are very independent. They all do the surgery while the attending usually watches and steps in when necessary.
Didactics: Mostly recon (Dr. Riveria did 2 fellowships in recon and is incredible at it), diverse array of cases otherwise.
OR Experience: Rarely do residents double scrub on any surgical cases, residents are expected to do (or at least attempt to do) skin-to-skin cases. The attendings are very hands-off with the knife and are willing to let residents try to figure things out on their own with some guidance. Since Podiatry is its own department, Dr. Vyce has equal say in decision-making as other departments (i.e. plastics, ortho, etc.) so the ORs (2 at a time) are always blocked off for podiatry. The start time is very early 7 am and quick turnover and will keep going until 2 am or later (on Fridays especially), so residents seem exhausted but they all surpass their numbers. A hierarchy system is in place (i.e. first years do dirty cases, the second year is fore foot, 3rd year is rear foot), and all first years meet and quadruple their numbers for first-year cases by mid December (more than other programs in the country). As a student, you won't get to see the more complex 3rd-year cases as you will mostly be with first years and the 3rd years operate mostly at surgical centers/locations where students aren't approved to go. If you ask a resident to show you numbers, you'll see graduating #s are above 1500 which is very high.
Clinic Experience: Dr. Vyce clinic and Dr. Gazes clinic are once a week, residents are expected to run it essentially.
Research Opportunities: Many opportunities as Dr. Blume has published a notable angiosome paper with Dr. Attinger (plastic surgeon at Georgetown, but both trained at Yale) and is into research. One current resident is a DPM/PhD so as you can expect, there are annual publications coming out of this program.
Lifestyle: Residents look exhausted, definitely not short of work/case volume when they are on service. A nice balance when they are off service. In-patient list at a single hospital can run up to 30's in number, and since it's a primary service the residents are managing a lot of responsibility. Fantastic relationship with plastic surgery department and very well respected by MDs/different specialties, so residents seem to really enjoy off service rotations.
Pros: A lot of autonomy so that you learn how to become a self-sufficient practitioner. Lots of surgeries. Really personable attendings who are passionate about teaching. Great diversity of cases. Although being a primary service is stressful, you learn a lot about medicine and how to manage multiple aspects of patient care. Graduates of the program are able to secure very well-paying jobs or fellowships.
Cons: Seems as though the first-year residents are really stressed while on service, but they are very capable of managing what needs to be done. New Haven is expensive but you can manage considering first year pay is 74K and increases so that as a 3rd year you are above 80K.
Overall Conclusion: If you want a surgical heavy program that is well-rounded, this is it. If you want to learn how to manage patients and feel prepared to be able to work anywhere upon graduating, this is the program for you.
