Cleveland Clinic, Ohio State, Thurmans, and Grampa’s Cheesebarn
I’m currently at 30,000 feet, looking down at the Ohio River on my flight back to Atlanta and thought I would put in a quick note about my trip to Ohio for the 2 interviews I had here.
The day I left Atlanta was a cold and cloudy day, arriving in Akron I found the weather was no better. It was cold, rainy and dank. After hanging around the Akron airport and all 12 gates (making the Memphis Airport look like Hartsfield) for 3 hours waiting on my rental car in the terminal I was ready to make my trip to Cleveland. I stood in line for Enterprise rent-a-car for 30 minutes waiting for my turn, while in line, I chatted with folks behind me about money saving travel tips. I told them (as they had reserved a compact) that they would be eligible for a free upgrade, but to refuse it. Since the gas crisis and economic downturn, car rental places are running out of gas sipping compacts and economies-their fleet being comprised of gas guzzling SUVs. When I got to the counter, sure enough they were out of economy cars and just started processing the paperwork for an SUV when I said “no way man, if you are going to upgrade me, I want a hybrid”. After finding out Enterprise apparently doesn’t have hybrids, I told them I wasn’t getting in an SUV with over 300 miles of driving I had to do. I ended up getting a 2010 chevy cobalt-a average car by all standards but certainly much more gas efficient that an SUV.
Arriving in Cleveland an hour later I drove in the rain into a city that looked like it had been evacuated for a hurricane or Godzilla attack. Street lights flashed, and besides the occasional homeless guy, no one could be found. The streets were nearly empty in downtown, and while it was Sunday night-the place was dead. I stayed at the doubletree with probably 15 other people occupying the hotel (representing approximately 10% of Cleveland’s total population). They tried to charge me $16 to park but Cleveland has plenty of free parking since it has become a ghost town. I fueled up on free doubletree cookies (you can get as many as you want), got my obligatory shaving cream, shower stuff and enjoyed the little bottles of liquor I stashed from flying first class. The next day was Cleveland Clinic-a totally awesome program in every way other than the fact it is unfortunately located in Cleveland. The program was completely different than every other program I interviewed at! While other programs saw your clinical year as 12 months you get out of the way before you bring in the bacon with research-Cleveland Clinic spends a full 2 years on clinical duties and organizes them in a way that makes much more sense than everything I’ve ever seen. Being involved in curriculum development for the last 6 years gave me a deep appreciation of what that program was doing. The negative? The fellows seemed to work much longer than other programs and there was no bonds of friendship that I could see. The advantages are probably the best training of the places I will interview and a program director that sees completely eye to eye with me-not to mention being in the #4 best hospital in the nation according to US news and world report.
After Cleveland Clinic, I hit the road for Columbus to check out Ohio State. During the 200 mile drive I stumbled upon a place called Grampa’s Cheese Barn. Since cheese barns are not all that common, I decided to check it out and am glad I did. This was like a Xtreme Cracker Barrel (or Crack Whore Bare All as I call it)! Not only did they have a barn with 40 feet of some of the most extreme cheese varieties, but they had homemade sodas, sandwiches, cider (they even had Dicken’s Cider!) and confections! Nearly everything had free samples so I walked around and snacked and shopped for some tasty treats. I found chocolate covered potato chips and fritos there (as seen in the pics) which sound like a real tasty idea! http://www.grandpascheesebarn.com/ Afterwards, I finished my drive to Columbus and checked into the hotel the program provided for me-a rebadged Red Roof in called the Varsity Inn near OSU campus. This hotel was definitely a letdown after the Doubletree the night before. I thought of writing a parody song about it (to the tune of Thriller-sing along)
This is the Varsity! Varsity Inn
and now you can not sleep
cause the toilet won’t stop running
Varsity! Varsity Inn
You’re sleeping on a bed where someone
Killed A
Stripper
Last Night!
That night I hit up Thurman’s Cafe (featured on Man vs. Food) in the German district of Columbus. It was a cool dive bar place and the home of the Thurmanator-1.5lbs of burger with 1/4lb of cheese, ham, mushrooms, onions, and veggies stacked high. I ended up with the Jonnie because it sounded like the most personally abusive thing to my body on the menu. It was a ¾ lbs burger with blue cheese, horseradish, bacon, and tequila with super greasy fries and served with “desert”-a shot of 1800 tequila. It was awesome going down but not so awesome refluxing it in the shower later that night. Regardless, when you are in Columbus, check out the Thurman, and if I had time, I would have went to Jeni’s ice cream-which is also apparently awesome and features cayenne pepper chocolate ice cream and salty caramel flavors (of note, they do ship) http://jenisicecreams.com/. Columbus is a nice city, and Ohio State Hospital is right on their enormous campus. It’s a real shame that fellows don’t get access to game tickets or their awesome workout facility. The interview day was the most exhausting I had had so far-originally I was scheduled for 13 interviews that day but I got them to cut it down to 11 so I could make my plane home. They said this wasn’t to exhaust the candidate, but make sure they knew what the facility were doing with the department. It was a pretty good day, and I left feeling like I knew the program pretty well. On the way back I stopped off at the cheese barn to get some cheese and interview one of their employees (the video is on youtube click here to watch! ) making it back to akron just in time to get my flight and another free 1st class upgrade. It’s great to be back in ATL!
check out some of my pics
here's some more pics!