Interview Six: There may be 2,501 of them but at least they call themselves Hoosiers
Once I returned from Portland, I spent a delightful 36 hours in my house before packing up all my things for prolonged stay for Christmas in TN and heading to the Hoosier State. Thursday the 6th dawned clear and bright but was gonna get ugly fast if I didn't flee before around noon in Iowa. A scary storm was forecast, and though I tried to stick around for it by taking too much time to find a source of air to inflate my tires that was not blocked behind a giant pile of snow and ice and then making two wrong turns around the Quad Cities looking for I-74, I did escape while the roads were clear and the sky blue. About the wrong turn, for heaven's sake, getting to Indy is no more complicated than getting on I-80 then I-74, but I managed to screw it up. I would not have cared except that I had to be in the lobby of the Sheraton to meet the residents for IU's dinner at 6:00 and I was going to lose an hour of travel time thanks to Indiana's stupid decision to go with EST not CST. I relaxed by listening to a podcast of Car Talk and then This American Life and made it to Indy with time to spare. Enough time to coordinate picking up a key from Harmony after dinner.
IU immediately got a gold star for putting us applicants up in the downtown Sheraton complete with view of the circle with delightful Christmas lights. I had time to trim my bangs and reapply makeup before meeting the other 11 applicants at the resident. We ate at Bertolini's (sp??) in the Circle Center Mall which was no cheap affair. Between the 8 or so residents and spouses plus the applicants, there were about 25 of us. We had wine, appetizers, pricey meals, dessert and coffee for what had to be a pretty awesome check. I sat next to an applicant from Ohio and a third-year resident in medicine/pediatrics, both of whom I liked quite a lot. In a fantastic display of a small world, I asked the resident about housing in Indy. She said the market favored buying but sucked for the former residents who were having a tough time selling. "Oh yeah," I said, "I have a friend who graduated from here who went to San Antonio, and he still hasn't sold his house." "Dan?" she immediately responded. I mean, honestly, there are 280 med students per class and she's several years older than Dan and me, but of course she knows him. I was highly entertained. In general, all of the residents were friendly and loved living in Indianapolis. As was the case with Denver, I am concerned about IU because it is an absolutely huge program. There are 26 general peds residents plus another dozen or so in combined pediatric programs like med/peds, etc. There are easily 100 residents compared to the 39 at Iowa. Eep! Of course the hospital is bigger, and the program actually works out of three hospitals (though primarily Riley Children's Hospital, one-time employer of Susan Moore, now Miller), so they need more residents. An Iowa grad came over and talked about liking Indy and the many social events that are planned and the ones that are impromptu. Each class assured us that they know the other people in their class and that they like the bigger size because it increases the chance that they will find people with common interests. Fair enough.
So dinner was fabulous, but by the time I scoped out the route to the Riley ER where I was to meet at 8:00 the next morning, grabbed Harmony's spare keys and attempted to re-befriend the Black Wonder, it was late. Plus Brandon from Malco called wanting to try to work out my work schedule at bloody 11:30 EST. Grr. It was a short night, but I had plenty of time to get ready the next morning and made it to Riley with lots of time to spare and no driving incidents. The interview day itself was good. I liked the program director and the pediatric chair. Both were friendly and had great senses of humor. The other applicants were superb and, by far, I had the most fun with this interview because of them. In particular, the Ohio guy was hilarious, as was an applicant from Loyola. We had entirely too much fun, particularly at lunch when a PL-1 began to regale us with stories of Mayo. Evidently, you can't be a smart ass and be a resident at Mayo, so most of us (especially me) were instantly glad we had not wasted our time on a program that would not have suited our personalities. I was interviewed by a neonatologist who talked as much about the other programs to which I have applied as about IU. Really he was comparing them and pretty much told me I'd be happy anywhere, as all them programs were good. He did talk about why he thought IU was superior (would have been great if he'd said, "Well, IU's great, but I'd got to UAB if I were you..."). I had only a few questions, but I was proud of my last one. I asked him, as we stood to go back to the home base for the day, if the stuffed animal on top of his bookshelf was the gopher from Caddy Shack, which allowed us to talk about that movie and the brilliant puppet for quite a while. I then had an interview with the residency director who had a real question for me. He asked what I could do first if I were suddenly the Dean of the Univ of Iowa College of Medicine. I spouted something and then he stumped me with a follow-up question, "What's your favorite bird?" Can you believe I didn't have an answer for that?? I was shocked. We chatted about IU basketball, Mike Davis and Kelvin Sampson on the way back to home base, so of course I was in my element. After a lunch consisting of Chinese, in which I had the most depressing "fortune" about how we use this world as though we have another one, it was off to a potentially-grueling tour of three hospitals. It wasn't horrible though, because we were all smart-asses and had too much fun again with way too much laughter. At one point, I had no choice but to ask a UK applicant if she was a Kentucky basketball fan. To her credit, she said no. I told her she was wise, as Indiana would not be too friendly in light of the IU/UK annual basketball game the next day in B'ton. We then talked about UK's new coach and at some point I may have threatened to punch anyone who professed to be a Duke fan. There was one such person, but I let him off the hook since we were wearing suits and blood is a bitch to get out. We acted like little kids when we happily said "yes" to going to the third hospital because travel was via a "People Mover" that looked like a scifi form of transportation. It was like a monorail and came complete with bad techno music that some of us may have danced to en route to the hospital.
The day ended at 3:00, after which I dropped my great amount of stuff off at Harmony's awesome pad and then went to the mall. My mom called, we talked about the interview and then she said, "You should call Dad." I did, and he asked if I wanted to "come over." ? I forgot he was in Indy for a trip, so I braved the 1,428,357 adolescents that had descended upon the Westin for an unidentified function, and met my dad in his hotel room. We then braved the teens again in the name of a beer at Alcatraz. One tastey beer later, it was back to Harmony's for the rest of the weekend. More on that later.
Thus endeth IU.
Bottom line: What can I say? It's Indiana for heaven's sake. I know I like Indiana. I know I like Indianapolis. I would get to see my Dad quite a lot whenever I could pull off dinner when he's in town for a FedEx trip. I could get to my grandmother from time to time. I know I like the letters "i" and "u" in that order and not vice versa because of basketball and Bloomington. I just don't know about the size. I did have a revelation, though. It occurred to me that the reason I think I want a 13ish size program is because I need to know I will have friends no matter what. I have a knack for not really making friends. Thanks to Jesse, it took a while before the I met the turkeys at IU. Harmony and I went together to UI, and now that she's gone, I have two (three if you count Sam) friends. If I go to a program of over 20, I am afraid I will fall through the cracks and end up without friends. Everyone will pick their friends and I'll look around, alone. Harmony, please picture the great SNAFU of organic chem lab where we looked around and were not next to each other. This is what I imagine happening the first day of orientation at a big residency. If this is really the only reason I want a medium program, then I should be able to suck it up, begin to think about a larger program more seriously and then IU would quickly move to the top of the list.
Talley: Colorado and OHSU are right out. Yale - m'eh. Iowa's my love. Utah and Indiana are probably at the top.
Next up: Dartmouth
IU immediately got a gold star for putting us applicants up in the downtown Sheraton complete with view of the circle with delightful Christmas lights. I had time to trim my bangs and reapply makeup before meeting the other 11 applicants at the resident. We ate at Bertolini's (sp??) in the Circle Center Mall which was no cheap affair. Between the 8 or so residents and spouses plus the applicants, there were about 25 of us. We had wine, appetizers, pricey meals, dessert and coffee for what had to be a pretty awesome check. I sat next to an applicant from Ohio and a third-year resident in medicine/pediatrics, both of whom I liked quite a lot. In a fantastic display of a small world, I asked the resident about housing in Indy. She said the market favored buying but sucked for the former residents who were having a tough time selling. "Oh yeah," I said, "I have a friend who graduated from here who went to San Antonio, and he still hasn't sold his house." "Dan?" she immediately responded. I mean, honestly, there are 280 med students per class and she's several years older than Dan and me, but of course she knows him. I was highly entertained. In general, all of the residents were friendly and loved living in Indianapolis. As was the case with Denver, I am concerned about IU because it is an absolutely huge program. There are 26 general peds residents plus another dozen or so in combined pediatric programs like med/peds, etc. There are easily 100 residents compared to the 39 at Iowa. Eep! Of course the hospital is bigger, and the program actually works out of three hospitals (though primarily Riley Children's Hospital, one-time employer of Susan Moore, now Miller), so they need more residents. An Iowa grad came over and talked about liking Indy and the many social events that are planned and the ones that are impromptu. Each class assured us that they know the other people in their class and that they like the bigger size because it increases the chance that they will find people with common interests. Fair enough.
So dinner was fabulous, but by the time I scoped out the route to the Riley ER where I was to meet at 8:00 the next morning, grabbed Harmony's spare keys and attempted to re-befriend the Black Wonder, it was late. Plus Brandon from Malco called wanting to try to work out my work schedule at bloody 11:30 EST. Grr. It was a short night, but I had plenty of time to get ready the next morning and made it to Riley with lots of time to spare and no driving incidents. The interview day itself was good. I liked the program director and the pediatric chair. Both were friendly and had great senses of humor. The other applicants were superb and, by far, I had the most fun with this interview because of them. In particular, the Ohio guy was hilarious, as was an applicant from Loyola. We had entirely too much fun, particularly at lunch when a PL-1 began to regale us with stories of Mayo. Evidently, you can't be a smart ass and be a resident at Mayo, so most of us (especially me) were instantly glad we had not wasted our time on a program that would not have suited our personalities. I was interviewed by a neonatologist who talked as much about the other programs to which I have applied as about IU. Really he was comparing them and pretty much told me I'd be happy anywhere, as all them programs were good. He did talk about why he thought IU was superior (would have been great if he'd said, "Well, IU's great, but I'd got to UAB if I were you..."). I had only a few questions, but I was proud of my last one. I asked him, as we stood to go back to the home base for the day, if the stuffed animal on top of his bookshelf was the gopher from Caddy Shack, which allowed us to talk about that movie and the brilliant puppet for quite a while. I then had an interview with the residency director who had a real question for me. He asked what I could do first if I were suddenly the Dean of the Univ of Iowa College of Medicine. I spouted something and then he stumped me with a follow-up question, "What's your favorite bird?" Can you believe I didn't have an answer for that?? I was shocked. We chatted about IU basketball, Mike Davis and Kelvin Sampson on the way back to home base, so of course I was in my element. After a lunch consisting of Chinese, in which I had the most depressing "fortune" about how we use this world as though we have another one, it was off to a potentially-grueling tour of three hospitals. It wasn't horrible though, because we were all smart-asses and had too much fun again with way too much laughter. At one point, I had no choice but to ask a UK applicant if she was a Kentucky basketball fan. To her credit, she said no. I told her she was wise, as Indiana would not be too friendly in light of the IU/UK annual basketball game the next day in B'ton. We then talked about UK's new coach and at some point I may have threatened to punch anyone who professed to be a Duke fan. There was one such person, but I let him off the hook since we were wearing suits and blood is a bitch to get out. We acted like little kids when we happily said "yes" to going to the third hospital because travel was via a "People Mover" that looked like a scifi form of transportation. It was like a monorail and came complete with bad techno music that some of us may have danced to en route to the hospital.
The day ended at 3:00, after which I dropped my great amount of stuff off at Harmony's awesome pad and then went to the mall. My mom called, we talked about the interview and then she said, "You should call Dad." I did, and he asked if I wanted to "come over." ? I forgot he was in Indy for a trip, so I braved the 1,428,357 adolescents that had descended upon the Westin for an unidentified function, and met my dad in his hotel room. We then braved the teens again in the name of a beer at Alcatraz. One tastey beer later, it was back to Harmony's for the rest of the weekend. More on that later.
Thus endeth IU.
Bottom line: What can I say? It's Indiana for heaven's sake. I know I like Indiana. I know I like Indianapolis. I would get to see my Dad quite a lot whenever I could pull off dinner when he's in town for a FedEx trip. I could get to my grandmother from time to time. I know I like the letters "i" and "u" in that order and not vice versa because of basketball and Bloomington. I just don't know about the size. I did have a revelation, though. It occurred to me that the reason I think I want a 13ish size program is because I need to know I will have friends no matter what. I have a knack for not really making friends. Thanks to Jesse, it took a while before the I met the turkeys at IU. Harmony and I went together to UI, and now that she's gone, I have two (three if you count Sam) friends. If I go to a program of over 20, I am afraid I will fall through the cracks and end up without friends. Everyone will pick their friends and I'll look around, alone. Harmony, please picture the great SNAFU of organic chem lab where we looked around and were not next to each other. This is what I imagine happening the first day of orientation at a big residency. If this is really the only reason I want a medium program, then I should be able to suck it up, begin to think about a larger program more seriously and then IU would quickly move to the top of the list.
Talley: Colorado and OHSU are right out. Yale - m'eh. Iowa's my love. Utah and Indiana are probably at the top.
Next up: Dartmouth