#228: Behind the Curtain: Residency Application Tips from an Assistant Program Director

Do you mind talking a little bit about how Swarrow Dermatology has been also helping and conjoining with Honor Health?

Yeah, so, I mean, all the residencies have to have a sponsor institution.

They have to have what's called a DIO.

And so community programs, programs where the residents primarily rotate through, like, private practices like my own, will be sponsored by an institution.

So Honor Health is a sponsoring institution for the residency I'm involved with, but they don't have any on-site dermatologists.

So the residents rotate through primarily our office, the VA, and there's one other office that they rotate through.

You know, it sounds a little strange, but it's not super uncommon.

For example, like the Mount Sinai program, they rotate through a bunch of different hospitals, right? It's not just Mount Sinai.

So sometimes the sponsor institution has their residents rotate through other institutions.

So, for example, like the University of Arizona Phoenix Medical School, they don't have a hospital.

So they rotate through the banner system.

So it's just a relationship between a hospital system and either a med school or a hospital system and hospitals.

and private offices.

It's a little bit more common in the historically DO residencies.

A lot of those were more community practice based.

But yeah, there's a few of us left.

Great.

And so you have what it looks like a lot of hats that you're wearing constantly.

What made you decide to join a practice after you finished your residency?

So we didn't start the practice.

We kind of inherited it a little bit.

You know, just for a little history, the historical DO programs and MD programs emerged in 2018, where the ACGME said that all dermatology programs, regardless of, you know, their kind of historicity, is going to have the same requirements and the same requirements.

tests, and there's only going to be one boards, for example.

And so that merging happened in 2018.

And so some of the historical DO programs didn't have a hospital or whatnot, and the new ACG requirements said you have to have a PEDS derm, and you have to have a derm path, and you have to have a MOS, and they all have to be fellowship trained.