SUNY Syracuse and Stony Brook

Last but not least, here are the last two places I interviewed at! With that, this concludes the Interview Trail thoughts. Coming to a close soon is the end of my medical school education, and starting is the responsibilities of a newborn intern.

SUNY SYRACUSE

7 resident programs (5 categorical, 2 guaranteed prelim)

Residents: SUPER cohesive team of residents. I really love the fact there are a lot of international and ultra-diverse individuals here. There are residents from Argentina, Sudan, Phillipines, etc. The applicants were also from various international programs (i.e. Ireland, Brazil, India,etc). The residents were super upfront with their information, clearly outlining the strengths and weaknesses of the program. They each all had special non-medical talents, and they seem to enjoy sharing these talents and time together outside of work. I really love the diversity of talents as well. Looks like the program curriculum is pretty reasonable/doable, and the residents enjoy the didactic that is put in place.

Pros

• Strong stroke and neuro-ICU service
• Large catchman area, see a lot of unusual pathology
• Resident-responsive program, program director listens and pays attention to your concerns
• Very integrative team of residents and faculty, supportive of each other’s growth and lots of opportunities for hands on learning
• Very diverse teams: international and multi-cultural residents
• Strong teaching: lots of interaction time w/ medical students (teach neuroanatomy, hold mini-lectures, prize for best teaching award) as they are integrated into the team, attendings are all very teaching-heavy, structured noon conference
• NAR (neurology admitting resident for the junior or senior resident) rotation that divvies up the workload; seems like the curriculum is pretty structured and well balanced
• Research is encouraged

Cons

• Lots of scutwork in PGY-2 still
• Not very strong in movement disorders/dementia
• Broad but thin sub-specialty coverage
• Feels like a primarily inpatient training and not much in the outpatient setting
• Didn’t really touch on internal medicine preliminary training program

I really enjoyed the interaction among the residents and faculty; they really seemed to bond like a family and support each other. It didn’t feel like a malignant program where residents don’t cover for each other. Prelim year seems reasonable, but they didn’t really elaborate on anything about it, so I don’t know what their program for the prelim is like. I like the way the curriculum is very resident learning-centered, though it sounds like some areas are still lacking. Weather is similar to Albany, but it looks like they get a little less snow. There are a lot of seasonal events that the residents go together when they have time, so it’s not a lack of events to attend.

STONY BROOK

5 resident programs

Residents: Everyone was very friendly, and they definitely operated as a cohesive group. They seemed pretty relaxed and enjoyed having extracurricular events together. The residents love their program director, and she seems to be very invested in medical education as well as student wellbeing. It seems like a resident-responsive program, and they try to cover all the different subspecialties that are available.

Pros

• Strengths: neuro-ophthalmology, peds-neuro
• Emphasis on medical education
• Good relations with the internal medicine team, treated as same as the team with a lot of elective time to explore (newly added neuroradiology)
• Rithika-esque internal chief came to talk to us about the program and answered questions  
• Close to connected university systems, work with
• Lots of research! Neurology rehabilitation work on fMRI working memory and stroke
• A lot of elective time for PGY3 and 4 to explore their specialties
• A lot of peds neuro exposure early on if interested
• Pay is higher
• Doris program coordinator is amazing!

Cons

• Movement disorders doesn’t see too strong. VA seems to be the main source of outpatient
• Cold and inhuman climate! Booo snows
• Car is necessary
• Didn’t like some of the attendings that interviewed me (really liked the program director and chairman for neurology department)
• Higher cost of living