"Good" Residencies

[Clueless]

Maybe I sound like a fool asking this but I constantly have people suggesting that I go to a school that gets "good" residencies but to be frank I'm not sure that I know what a "good " residency is. Does this mean a school that gets lots of specialty residencies? I want to go into a general field, Family Practice, Internal Med, or Ped and I am pretty open to location for my residency. I know its good to keep the options open, but still I think that that is the direction I want to go in. I am not yet sure whether I will go Carib or D.O. but I hear the whole good residencies thing on both sides. So what makes a good residency? Any opinions?

[Kronos]

If you are research-oriented, intent on sub-specializing, or want to get on a teaching-track academic position, then a "good" residency would be one that is based in a University hospital system. Example: New York Presbyterian, or even University of Iowa Hospital, for that matter. This kind of residency in any field will give you more chances and opportunities at one of those goals, plus you tend to get a deeper clinical education.

For primary care, a good residency might be a hospital with a solid Rural Medicine system, or those that offer a wide variety of services but only one residency sch as Family or Internal. Essentially you will learn every- and any-thing, including some procedures. These are sometimes found at community- or rural-level hospitals, so your clinical education will be different than at a University hospital.

This is not to say one or the other is better. Some docs find their strengths and interests better served at either or.

[AUCMD2006]

what makes a good residency is different for different people. some consider a good residency one that is university based, others have varying criteria from location to people they know in the program. for example for me it was location, number of surgeries was even or greater than OB load and family considerations. i am at a large community program that is affiliated with a large medical school but it is not their hospital..some consider my program inferior because its not directly attached to the univeristy but you couldn't pay me enough to go to the university program here so my criteria differ

generally there are a few guidelines you can use. if you want or have the remote possibility of doing a fellowship then go to a hospital with a fellowship in that field. if you want to teach and become faculty of a med school it is easier to be at a university based program and from my personal obeservations: try to avoid programs that are more than half img's because there is usually a reason the US grads stay away from those programs so if there are more imgs than not i would ask more questions about the program