[Helen Womack]

Hi,

We host one every year in September on a Sunday evening.  Our PD is on for the first 2 minutes and then it’s all resident driven.  The residents divide up the topics and talk about Resident life, call schedules, perks of the program, diversity perspective, family life, and what’s great about our city.  They’ve made a ppt to go along with their talk.  We ask that applicants submit their questions in the chat throughout the hour and a group of residents are in charge of answering those questions. Finally, at the end if anyone wants to stay on to ask anything they can, but most don’t.  I’ve read on forums like Redditt that students hate virtual open houses, too and think they’re a waste of time.  I do keep the attendance sheet and if we’re trying to narrow down the last few candidates to interview, I’ll check to see if they attended the open house or contacted us to express their interest.  I normally have about 200 register for the open house, but only about 130-150 attend.  They have to register first and I’ll send the link to them the week before.

Helen – Carolinas Medical Center, Charlotte, NC

[Helen Womack]

Hello,

We were surprised as well to see less applicants this year.  We had 45 fewer applications and 34 fewer signals.  That’s a decrease of 7.5% from last year.  I searched medical student forums to see if I could find any trash talk about our program!  LOL  I wonder what’s going on?

Helen Womack, Carolinas Medical Center, Charlotte, NC

[Helen Womack]

One of our residents plans the med student socials each month.  They go to a brewery the last week of their rotation.  All 26 residents are invited along with the 5 rotating med students.  We give them a maximum of $500 to spend on food including tip and we don’t reimburse for alcohol.  (hospital policy)

– Helen Womack

[Helen Womack]

This is the first year we gave our PGY4s the option of going to a conference of their choice instead of going to AAOS.  (We feel the same way about AAOS as someone else mentioned).  They’ve been looking forward to going together to Las Vegas since they were interns, so no one chose to go to a different conference this year.  Each PGY class has a specific conference they attend as a class each year and they have to use their $2600 CME money to pay for the trip and the overage is covered by an internal foundation grant.   Below is a breakdown of the courses our residents go to as a class. – Helen Womack, Charlotte, NC

PGY1 – OTA Fracture Conference

PGY2 – AAOS Fundamentals of Knee

PGY3- IPOS/POSNA

PGY4 – AAOS or specialty conference

PGY5 – Miller Review and one additional course/conference

 

 

 

[Helen Womack]

I really like Infab because they have a thousand fun fabrics that our interns can choose for the inside of the lead vests.  They also sell a couple of different products to protect the axillary breast tissue for our female residents.  The biggest reason I like Infab is because they’ll give me an invoice to submit for payment instead of a quote which takes me half a day to enter into the system for a PO.  I hope you can find a good rep.

[Helen Womack]

Hi Laurie, I’m interested in your app for recruiting information.  Was that something your department created or did that come from your institution?

[Helen Womack]

Thank you so much for sending this.  It must be an IT issue with a new email address me and my PD received.

[Helen Womack]

Hello,

A couple of students emailed me to verify the number of allowed LORs at our program. One said there’s been a lot of chatter about programs not even looking at you if you submit 4 LORs when 3 were the max stated for the program. That’s too much stress to even think about!

[Helen Womack]

Our chiefs get access to Miller Review and it’s their choice to attend in person or virtual.  They also get to choose one additional conference to attend.  The 4th years attend the AAOS annual meeting.  The 3rd years attend the Ipos/Posna annual meeting in December. They are all happy residents with no complaints about the conferences they attend except when their non-itemized meal receipts get rejected for reimbursement.

Best,

Helen

[Helen Womack]

Hello,

I send out rejection emails and I still got emails today from students expressing their continued interest.  I think they thought if they sent me an email at noon today, I would slide them into an open spot.  It doesn’t work like that!

[Helen Womack]

My rank listed applicants matched into Ortho Surgery;   7  went unmatched.

[Helen Womack]

<p style=”text-align: left;”>I almost overlooked the email that contained the username and password.    It was sent on 10/23 with this subject line: “Welcome to the Orthopaedic In-Training Examination.”</p>
 

[Helen Womack]

Hello,

I received notification on 11/29 from AAOSmeetings@aaos.org that my meeting space has been reserved at the Venetian.

Best,

Helen

 

[Helen Womack]

Hello,

I couldn’t join this session yesterday.  Can I have a link to the recording?

[Helen Womack]

The first week in September I  selected all my residents that are going to take the exam and clicked “save”.  (I’ve done this multiple times since then).   However in the “order summary”, it says I have no orders.  Is this normal?

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