Interview: Northshore University Health Systems

First impressions: When I first got an invite from "Northshore University Health Systems" I had no idea what program it was until I learned that it used to be called the Northwestern McGaw program (which is what it still says on ERAS). This year they changed sponsors from Northwestern University to the University of Chicago, and so they dropped the Northwestern name and became "Northshore." Yesterday I flew to Chicago and then rode the CTA (aka the "El") to Evanston, where the main teaching hospital is located. Evanston Hospital was only 3-4 stops away (via the Purple Line of the CTA) from my hotel, so the day before my interview, I went there to see what it was like and found this:


Pretty nice, right? I like all the greenery around the hospital.
Pre-Interview Dinner: None, so I took the train to Chinatown for some cheap beef noodle soup and spent about 15 minutes at an anime gift shop ogling at plushies and action figures before deciding to buy a poster for a fellow Bleach friend and fan.
Interview Day: There was some snowfall this morning which put me in a happy mood (this is fine powdery snow, not sleet like we have at home). At the hospital, there were 10 of us total, of which I was the only one from the "South" (everyone else was from Illinois, Nebraska, North Dakota, New York, to name a few). There was one girl from UNE-COM so we chatted a bit. We met the chairman and the program directors who were all extremely friendly and welcoming, and everyone asked me how I liked the weather here. There were four program directors and three interviewing faculty so they took turns calling us to their offices for interviews. My first interview was with an ER attending (don't know why they asked him to do IM interviews), and one of the questions he asked me was where I saw myself in 10 years. Sadly I wasn't able to give a clear response b/c right now I like all aspects of IM (general practice, hospitalist, possibly subspecialty), and I think I need to work on that answer. No one really knows whether the PDs prefer to hear that we want to specialize or go into primary care. The second interview was with the chairman, who immediately asked me if I had any questions for him. I asked him what he liked the most about the program, and somehow I got prompted into telling him how being a violinist set standards that have helped me succeed in medical school (i.e. working together as a team, practice makes perfect, etc.) which must have sounded totally cheesy. Still, I think I clicked better with the chairman than the ER doc; who knows how they'll rank me.

Whenever we weren't in interviews, we chatted with one of the chief residents as well as a future chief. I asked about cost of living and they said the salary might not let you buy a house, but you can rent a decent sized apartment for sure. "Of course, living in Texas is cheap," said the future chief. *sigh* Don't I know it. When most of us had finished our interviews we went to an intern conference in which an endocrinologist grilled the interns on diabetes drugs and their effects on the body. She made an interesting point that patients on metformin should take calcium supplements or else they'll end up with VitB12 deficiency; that's something I've never heard of before.
Noon and Beyond: Afterwards we had lunch with several residents before going on a tour around the hospital. Let me just say, the hospital is nice. There are concierge services and everything is computerized; the nurses' stations are large just because there aren't any paper charts cluttering the desks. And there are computers everywhere; Evanston Hospital has been paperless since 2003 because they have an EMR that works. More importantly, all the residents I spoke to are genuinely happy at the program, with my tour guide (a CCOM grad) saying it was probably the best in the area. The tour finished at 1:30 pm, and I managed to catch the next train back to the hotel and pick up my luggage. Sadly the next southbound train left just as I was hurrying toward the station, so I had to wait for the next one. I left at 2:15 and didn't get to the airport until 3:45 (the train made a lot of stops along the way), and my flight was at 4:15 so I was running through the airport like a madwoman just to make it on time. *sigh*
Overall Impression:
Pros: Top teaching hospital, very DO friendly (at least 5-6 residents each year come from CCOM), good location (just north of Chicago, near Northwestern University), friendly faculty, decent fellowship placement, opportunities to rotate at University of Chicago, 100% EMR
Cons: 50% private attendings (which may or may not cause disagreements with patient care), possibly long commutes to 2nd teaching hospital 30 minutes north of Evanston, not sure if I want to live in Chicago (can't decide based on a one-day visit)