My Schedule

I am a PGY-2 resident here at USF. Our typical day starts around 7am, sometimes earlier, 630am, during some of our busier rotations. Through out the four year residency, we rotate at 4 different hospitals. Tampa General is located in downtown Tampa, on the bay. This is about 15 miles from the VA and Moffitt Cancer Center which are located near the USF campus. The VA and Moffitt are across the street from each other, connected by a covered walk. The Children's Hospital is located in St. Pete, 25 miles from downtown Tampa. On some of the forums I have seen the biggest complaint is the driving. The only rotation were driving is part of the routine is at Tampa General, two days a week you drive the 15 minutes to the USF campus for clinics. During the other rotations the clinics are located at the hospital so there is no driving required. When rotating at these other hospitals you arrive in the morning and leave at night without driving anywhere, except on occasion to lunch. When taking home call, you may be required to drive from one hospital to another hospital. I would say this is more of an exception than the rule. I have had to do this once and that was on a Saturday. For the most part I would say I work between 60-70 hours a week on average, including home call. It is more like 70 during our trauma week when I am working at Tampa General and more like 60 any other week. We only cover trauma at Tampa General, every other week.

My Learning Experience

In my opinion, our faculty and there love of teaching residents is our strongest attribute. We have a well known Chairman, Dr. Thomas McCaffrey, he has been at the program for seven years and has no plans of leaving. He has done an excellent job of recruiting young faculty, some of whom he helped train at the Mayo Clinic. We have two very strong Head and Neck surgeons, Dr. Judith McCaffrey and Dr. Tapan Padhya, both of whom were fellowship trained at Cincinnati. Dr. Matthew Kienstra is our Facial Plastics and Reconstruction surgeon, he also trained at the Mayo Clinic and completed his fellowship at Michigan. Dr. Paul Boyev is our Neurotologist, he completed his fellowship at Mass Eye and Ear. Dr. Yash Patil completed is fellowship in microvascular surgery at Wash U in St. Louis. Dr. Marion Ridley is a Hopkins trained faculty member who specializes in Voice and Swallowing, he has been on staff for 15 years. Didactics take place every Tuesday evening from 5-6pm, and either Monday or Friday morning from 730-830. We have journal club once monthly and M&M the first Wednesday of every month.

My Life and Environment

We have great camaraderie among all of the residents and the faculty. We do things together outside of the hospital, but also are able to have our separate family lives. Tampa has alot of things to offer outside of work. The beach is only 20 minutes away, the weather is almost always perfect, and there is a pretty decent night life. With our work ours and the guaranteed 4 days off a month, I definetly have a life outside of the hospital. Our schedules are done by the residents, so they are flexible when given enough notice and we have arranged our days off were we get 2 weekends off a month, rather than one day off per week. The idea 4 days off per month is somewhat of a misnomer, some weekends when I am schedule to work I have been on call and after getting home from rounds around noon, I haven't went back to the hospital.

– Posted 10/25/04

My Schedule

I interviwed here, but did not match here. General surgery year is pretty manageable according to the present interns. You do your ENT training at 4 different hospitals. At Moffit cancer center (6 months total) you get there at 6 and leave between 7 and 10pm. Tampa General (1 year total) come in at 6:30 leave at 6pm, however, 3.5 days per week are killer clinics. Childrens (6 months) 6am-6pm. VA (15 months) 6-5:30. Also 6 months otology which is pretty strong there. Research is a 3 month block during which you take call. You can get away with a case report as your reseach project. Call is horendous. All call is from home. A schedule was given to us which was confusing to say the least. At childrens you take call every other week for 7 days straight. Sometimes you are covering 1 hospital, sometimes 2. The residents say though, that the schedule is not really followed, since while at Moffit you are on call 24/7. Basically, you are on call a lot and go in 75% of the nights on call. Trauma is split half and half with private plastic surgeons in town. One of the biggest drawbacks to this program is the driving required. Childrens is 45-60 minutes away in St. Pete and Tampa General is 20-25 minutes away in south tampa. Moffit and the VA and side by side in northern tampa. Most residents live in south tampa. So if your on the Children's rotation, you drive over to st. pete and round, have to be back to the office near moffit for 7am conference, then drive back to childrens for the day. Also some afternoons you have to drive over for conference, drive back to children's for afternoon rounds, drive home, get called back in, go back home, etc. You can easily end up driving 2.5 hours per day. Resdients didn't really mention this much and when asked, tried to downplay it, but no doubt it sucks.

My Learning Experience

There is no doubt you will be an operating machine when you graduate. Over 2200 cases easily. Start operating early. pgy 4's give away tymp mastoids because they have done so many. At childrens, one resident said he did nearly 1000 cases in 6 months including airway reconstructions, parotids, etc. PGY 2's will do several total laryngectomies as primary surgeon. H&N is the primary emphasis here. Moffit is probably the third in the country for H&N. The VA consistently ranks as the # 1 or 2 busiest in the country. No free flaps. Reconstructive is ok, cosmetics is pretty weak. Only met 4 residents, but they seemed all right. There are 2 younger faculty at least that are supposed to be really cool and hang out with the residents. Very nice temporal bone lab.

My Life and Environment

Tampa is a great town if you like forida wheather. PLenty of stuff to do if you're married or single. THey have the Bucs, a NHL team, and the devil rays. There are many options on where to live, there are really nice places, but some affordable areas as well.

– Posted 03/26/03