couldbe - 26 February 2010 02:04 PM

UMDNJ is on almost all the lists. It is a great program but anyone care to offer why such interest? intraoperative MRI?

I don’t know much about UMDNJ, but I was impressed by the program during the interview.  I would not be surprised that people ranked it highly.  All the faculty and residents there seemed friendly and intelligent.  Being in NJ and its proximity to NYC gives it an added advantage.  They may also have many internal candidates or people who did sub-i’s there who will rank it high.  Nonetheless, an excellent program I thought.

Does anyone remember where that thread is that used the wiki for last year’s rank list to determine competitiveness of programs? Yes, I’ve searched.

I think that the thread you are looking for can be found here:

http://uncleharvey.com/index.php/forums/viewthread/1546/P75/

The Excel spreadsheet someone created is on page 6.

Attached for ease. Linked here is part of the discussion on the making of this sheet: Page 7.

To avoid rehashing the debate (pages 3-4, 6-7 of that thread), yes the Excel sheet was made based on an incomplete posting of all submitted ranks nationally, no it’s not scientific, yes there are multiple ways of assessing “desirability” besides the number of times a program is ranked #1, top 3, top 5 in a rank list of other possible programs… nevertheless, here is data, and you can take it or not look at it. No one is banking their careers/pride on this, but it is observational, entertaining, interesting.

For those coming in, the Excel sheet examined all 49 rank lists from last year and lists school, all rank positions, average rank, median rank, standard error, if not ranked, and then takes a frequency sum of the (1/ave rank*10, freq top 1, freq in top 3, freq in top 5) to generate a desirability index.

Since electronichate and D. muscipula already did the work of creating the sheet, we could put in our rank results when we feel like we have enough. For entertainment purposes only. Happy viewing.

albrain - 26 February 2010 02:56 PM

couldbe - 26 February 2010 02:04 PM

UMDNJ is on almost all the lists. It is a great program but anyone care to offer why such interest? intraoperative MRI?

I don’t know much about UMDNJ, but I was impressed by the program during the interview.  I would not be surprised that people ranked it highly.  All the faculty and residents there seemed friendly and intelligent.  Being in NJ and its proximity to NYC gives it an added advantage.  They may also have many internal candidates or people who did sub-i’s there who will rank it high.  Nonetheless, an excellent program I thought.

I agree.....UMDNJ is a great program and it is going to be a powerhouse in the next few yrs. They are expanding to take 3 a year, starting this yr. They have GREAT surgical diversity, lots of trauma (prety much anything you can imagine) and have one of the top complex spine surgeons in the country in Dr. Heary. Dr. James Lui is also relatively new there (cerebrovascular/skull base) and he is an amazing surgeon as well. The attendings get along great with the residents. Dr. Carmel is a Peds, but they are apparently in the process of looking for another Peds NS w/ Dr. Carmel running for pres. of the AMA.

Overall the residents appear to be a very fun group who all get along. Their pre-interview dinner was quite entertaining and they are an extremely cohesive group of residents. Some people badmouth Newark, and it isn’t a city known for its aesthetics, but it’s “rough on the edge” nature is the reason for the surgical diversity and trauma load. Some of the surrounds of Newark are quite nice, and plus it’s minutes from manhattan.

I do get the impression that w/ all its trauma, you will likely work your @ss off, more so than your average NS program. It certainly would not fall under my category of “cush” or “gentleman’s programs” - not at all malignant though, don’t get the wrong impression.

My 2 cents

I’m surprised to see a couple of the lists not ranking programs like USC and Michigan.  Michigan, at least, is one of those programs that caters to resident satisfaction.  It might have some weaknesses, but what would make it not worth ranking? I guess it’s all in the eye of the beholder.

the list that didn’t rank USC seemed pretty easy coast heavy, maybe they’d rather not match and try again east than go west

it may be entertaining, but the “data” is laughable:aynonomous people posting lists that may or may not even be accurate. Fun? yes. any meaningful information? extremely low-yield

I wouldn’t be so quick to dismiss this rank list information: although it is certainly possible for someone to provide false information (thus like everything on UH you have to be cautious), there is little reason to do so since these postings are anonymous and rank lists are submitted now for both applicants and programs. I certainly looked very carefully at the lists submitted by last year’s class. Even if there is poor representation of the total lists each year, the cumulative data over several years will probably be fairly compelling.

I just don’t know if aynonomous posts can ever be “compelling”. UH can be a source of great information, but there is a world of difference between a post from someone like “Stem Cell”, who has posted large quantities of valid information on multiple occasions that you can rely on and the posts from someone who is aynonomous or has only posted once or twice. It makes a big difference.

Here is an example from last year’s lists: I would question the truthfulness of it.
1.UNC
2.Temple
3.MCG
4.MCW
5.MCV
6.SLU
7.MGH
8.UCSF
9.Kansas
10.Mayo
11.UPenn
12.Northwestern
13.Pitt
x.Cleveland Clinic
x.Columbia
x. OHSU

The other reason that the “compelling” label is questionable is because the information is biased towards the type of people that actually post their rank lists. Having said all that, I think that it is fun and worth doing and there may even be some simple conclusions that can be drawn (e.g.In this small sample of lists that may or may not be truthful, UCSF, BNI, Mayo are generally ranked higher than (insert less desirable programs)) ; it is just that people get a little excited and read a little too much into the lists.

Why do you think the above list is unbelievable?  One man’s trash might be another man’s treasure.

I didn’t say “unbelievable”; I think “questionable” is a better term, not because it is not possible that somebody really submitted that list, but rather because the odds of it being fabricated, in my opinion, are higher than the odds of it being a genuine submission. Your point that this could actually be someone’s true list is a valid one, but probably less likely.

BUMP - keep those lists coming.

Chords of Billroth - 28 February 2010 07:04 PM

BUMP - keep those lists coming.

Bump

BUMP, again