the south

Regarding Emory, I think they have a strong infrastructure and as you mentioned their experience is solid. I believe that with or without Dr. Marshall, the residents will receive great training and come out of Emory ready for academics or private practice. This is not a program I feel is solely thriving because of its chair. Comments on this?

Vanderbilt: one of the best because great reputation and faculty. J. Smith is a great chairman who will go to bat for you. Good location. Residents graduate with great case numbers and variety in a 5 year program. Weaknesses: transplant and infertilty.

Emory: great city with exposure to large county hospital and VA. Fun residents. Heard they just acquired a robot and minimal invasive training is behind the curve.

Duke: great reputation with respected chairman and staff. Have holes, but overall very good.

Wake Forest: good program now. Without Atala, where would they be?

Baylor: 4 person program with research year. All specialties except transplant are covered well with great volume. Also has a county and VA hospital. VA hospital has a robot. Large children's hospital.

UTSW: also 4 person program at 5 years instead of 6. Minimal transplant and fertilty/ED exposure. Has a malignant reputation but that is debatable. Have access to county, VA, children's, and booming private hospital.

Miami: good 5 year program, but also has a malignant reputation. Miami is Miami. Most specialties are covered. Booming county and children's hospital.

great info and insight.

Oklahoma is a 3-man, five year program that is very well funded. The city has a ridiculously low cost of living, and a surprisingly nice downtown. The medical center is the tertiary referral site for all of Oklahoma, panhandle of Texas, and southern Kansas. The medical center is growing rapidly, has numerous resources for basic science research, and the major hospitals are all located close together. Both Presby and the VA have robots. Pediatrics and transplant are both strengths, and there is a pediatrics fellowship.

Too bad it's malignant as hell.

I guess the question to ask yourself is do you want to be coddled and happy, but never see the really complicated cases because they go to a tertiary referral center or do you want to take a little bruising for five years and get to get your hands dirty? Different priorities for different people.

There are plenty of places to get the best of both worlds...tertiary referral center with large, complicated case load without malignant staff...

Hey yall, I'll be applying this round and am looking for any updated info. I noticed UAB was left off the list.

Bump. Any more comments on programs in the south, especially UAB?

DOes anyone have any updates to add? Any programs with New Chairs, recent changes (pos./neg.) that seem to be changing the direction of the program, etc.?

Any comments on U of Florida...I hear its the best in Florida, but how does it compare otherwise

UF is the best in Florida. Best trained in the state, good diversity of cases, residents generally seem happy and get along. Gainsville is not the greatest place to live in, but it's a college town so there's always something to do. USF second. Good training, good residents to work with. Tampa is decent but expensive to live in. No comment about Mayohi Jacksonville--I didn't interview there. But I would rank it third anyway on reputation. UMiami is malignant. Residents treated poorly. Miami looked like a cool area though.  I would also not recommend applying unless you can speak Spanish or Creole as 75% of your patients won't speak English. That seems frustrating.

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UF is the best in Florida. Best trained in the state, good diversity of cases, residents generally seem happy and get along. Gainsville is not the greatest place to live in, but it's a college town so there's always something to do. USF second. Good training, good residents to work with. Tampa is decent but expensive to live in. No comment about Mayohi Jacksonville--I didn't interview there. But I would rank it third anyway on reputation. UMiami is malignant. Residents treated poorly. Miami looked like a cool area though.  I would also not recommend applying unless you can speak Spanish or Creole as 75% of your patients won't speak English. That seems frustrating.

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i don't know if UF is the best program in the state. i rotated there as a student and at Miami and could only really say that UF is a much better program than miami. my UF rotation is more reflective of what urology is and will be. UF had a good diversity of cases, and get a lot of minimally invasive training. I really enjoyed working with their residents and felt like they were well trained.

when I was at miami, they do a lot of unnecessary open cases, and nearly no miminally invasive cases. this is mostly cause I think their chair (which i think now may be ex-chair but still runs the program) does not believe in minimally invasive. i also heard from one of my friend's who is a resident now at miami that the hospital they do a majority of their training out of (jackson) is about to cut residents or shut it's doors......so no chair and a possible hospital closure = a majorly unstable program. probably not a safe bet.

for real though, there are a lot of inner workings to programs you do not see on an interview. If you have any friends even in other departments at the hospitals you interview at, it's important to ask them about their thoughts on the urology dept... you find out things you , as a potential resident, need to know.

It is true: compared to UF, no one is doing robotic VVs or robotic microsurgical denervations.  Of course, if you wish to be a ball pain expert, these could come in handy.  At UM, in addition to the usual robotic partials, robotic prostates, etc. they are still doing pure lap extraperitoneal prostates, pure lap retroperitoneal nephrectomies/nephro-us, pure lap adrenalectomies, etc.  You could say that all those procedures are passe, or you could say that being exposed to open, robotic, and laparoscopic procedures makes you well rounded.