What To Consider When Ranking Family Medicine Residency Programs

All of the things I considered when ranking family medicine residency programs, plus why I loved my #1 program and a few of my other top choices! 

__________________________

Knowing what I know now, I realize how clueless I was going into the residency application and interview season. There were so many things I had never considered; things I didn’t even know were options or would matter to me. I learned so much about different programs and offerings along the way, and a lot of it played into how I ranked my programs. I hope this helps you in your application, interview and ranking process!

Scroll down if you just want to know why I ranked Northwestern #1!

Things To Consider When Ranking Family Medicine Residencies

Here are the categories I had in my spreadsheet comparing all the programs I interviewed with.

1. Location

An obvious first. I loved the idea of ending up somewhere with warmer whether, but also liked the idea of being driving distance from home. Those two things don’t really go well together when you’re from the midwest, ha! I also considered location a lot for my boyfriend’s job. 

2. Type

Was it at an academic center, a community hospital, or a community hospital affiliated with an academic center? Would there be other residents there, and are there often medical students to teach? Contrary to many other fields, I found that academic vs. community reputation doesn’t matter as much for family medicine. You can get great jobs out of either, and even go back to academic after training at a community hospital. The bigger thing to think about is opportunities and feel. Academic centers will often have higher acuity patients and more renowned attending physicians, but you could end up competing with with other residency programs for educational opportunities. At community hospitals the family medicine residents can run the show a bit more, being the first resident in line for any patient or procedure. Neither is better than the other, it just depends what you’re looking for.

3. Size

How may residents per class? This wasn’t make it or break it for me, but I thought I’d prefer a slightly larger residency than a smaller one, especially if we were the only residents at the hospital. More residents = more friends!

4. People

This is where I wrote down my general feel for the people I met that day. Did I get along with them? Would I enjoy working with them?

5. Curriculum

All accredited family medicine residencies have to fulfill the same requirements, so some people don’t think the little differences matter all that much. But I definitely found the little curricular differences interesting and somewhat important.

What were the didactics like and when are they held? Is  there any particular curricular focus at this program? Did the program offer a month of orientation or just a week prior to starting work? Was there anything special about the rotation schedule or clinics? How much pediatric exposure will you have? Some programs offered true family medicine inpatient medicine, where you take care of adults, kids, and laboring moms all at the same time. Others just see adults on their standard inpatient months.

6. Special Curricular Opportunities

This is a good place to list any special tracks or threads the residency offers, like global health, community health, etc. I am particularly interested in integrative medicine and mental health. I looked into programs with the Integrative Medicine in Residency program from the University of Arizona, I also favored programs that offered more behavioral health training and had behavioral health staff on site.

7. Training Sites

What were the hospital and clinic(s) like? How big are they and what is the patient population? Do they see mostly insured or underserved patients? These details could actually change your experience and your training greatly.

8. Salary and Benefits

Salary and benefits weren’t make it or break it for me, but they are definitely something that could take a program up a notch! I was surprised by the differences in salary, and not always related to cost of living. There were also may differences in provided meals, health insurance, parking, and vacation days. Those things can make a big difference in quality of life.

9. Extra Perks

Here I Just listed anything else that stood out on the interview day or was unique about the program! For example, one program in downtown Chicago had its own apartment building with very cheap rent for residents.

10. Any Concerns

This section was for any downsides to the program that I wanted to keep in mind while making my rank list.

It was a bit frustrating that there wasn’t anyone program that checked every single box for me. That would have been a program here in St. Louis that offered integrative medicine, which doesn’t exist. So, knowing that something was going to have to give a little bit, I looked at my list and considered all my options. I’m absolutely thrilled to have matched at my first choice! Here’s what put Northwestern on top.

(Note: Northwestern has three different family medicine programs. I’m not going to share exactly where I’m working for privacy’s sake!)

Why I Ranked Northwestern #1

1. The people and feel

I had previously met the program director and the integrative medicine fellow at a conference and they were both wonderful. The program director trained in Integrative Medicine, which made me think the whole program itself would share a similar health philosophy. (They also served salmon and roasted veggies for lunch on interview day, which was amazing.) I loved all of the other faculty members and residents I met at the interview. It was just an easy, fun interview day.

2. Integrative Medicine opportunities

They have the integrative medicine curriculum as well as being one of very few places in the country to offer the Integrative Medicine Fellowship in Residency. Northwestern also has an Osher Center for Integrative Medicine, which will likely provide me more connections and research opportunities in the field. I’m not entirely certain which fellowship, if any, I’ll do, but I definitely like having the option available since many programs like to get fellows from their own residencies.

3. Best of both worlds

The program is community-based (I’ll mainly work at one of Northwestern’s community hospitals, not the main downtown hospital) but is still affiliated with a very reputable academic institution. This is the best of both worlds for me.

4. Variety of patient populations

I’ll work at two different clinics, one in a relatively suburban insured area and one that is a Federally Qualified Health Center with a large immigrant and refugee population. I very much wanted exposure and training with multiple different patient populations so I felt prepared for wherever my career took me.

5. New Longitudinal Curriculum

The program is only six years old, so I get the benefits of a newer program while still being at a very established institution. I like that that newer programs have had to put a great deal of thought into the structure of the program and often have innovative ideas. This Northwestern program offers a unique longitudinal curriculum based off of how people learn best: by repetition over time. After seeing how stagnant and set it its ways academic medicine can be, I enjoyed finding something new and intentional.

6. Close to home and friends

Chicago is a quick drive home to St. Louis and close to lots of friends. It also was a good choice for my boyfriend’s career. At first I thought being farther away would be fine, especially since I’ve loved living in other cities before!  But when it came down to rank I realized I really wanted to be closer to home.

7. Wellness Oriented and Family Friendly

They were very wellness-oriented and family friendly. A number of residents were pregnant and they seemed to be very accommodating of families. I have no idea if I’ll get pregnant during residency, but at almost 32 it was important to me to find a place that would be welcoming to that!

8. Gut Feeling

I had a gut feeling the entire time that Northwestern was the right choice. It’s hard to explain but also hard to deny. At times I questioned it, but everyone seemed to agree that Northwestern was a natural top pick.

The Downsides

As I mentioned, no program checked every box. This program is a little farther outside the city of Chicago than I’d prefer. The hospital is on the small side and won’t have other residents. It doesn’t have some of the perks other programs did like free food or fully paid health insurance premiums. And the weather…well…I’ll try not to complain too much!! But those downsides couldn’t outweigh all the benefits, and I’m fairly certain they won’t matter much in the long run. I think Northwestern will end up being absolutely perfect for me!

Other Family Medicine Programs I Loved

Every place I interviewed had really great aspects and I found making my rank list really really challenging. I obviously didn’t interview at even a fraction fo all of the programs out there, but here are a few of my other favorites:

• Franciscan Health in Indianapolis. I cannot believe I nearly cancelled this interview, because I ended up loving it! I know I could have been very happy there and highly recommend looking into this program. I’m obviously thrilled with my first choice, but still get a little sad about this one.
• St. Anthony North in Denver. Such a beautiful hospital and well designed clinic. Great integrative opportunities, including a fellowship, and wonderful, down to earth people. Plus mountains…
• Aurora Health in Milwaukee. The most integrative trained faculty anywhere in the country! A great focus on resident wellness. Just really nice midwestern people.
• Kaiser Orange County wins for the most fun interview. We played with legos! I loved the people at this program, and obviously Orange County is kind of a dream to this midwestern girl!
• University of Arizona in Tucson. The home of Integrative Medicine! I loved nearly everything about this program except that it was so far from home and not a great location for my boyfriend.
• St. Louis University. My home program! The people are incredible, and if you’re looking for a program with a focus on the urban underserved and mental health, this could be perfect for you.

Good luck to everyone in upcoming Match cycles!