1/20 University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey

Internship Site: University of Medicine & Dentistry of New Jersey  (Newark, NJ)

Major Rotations: General Child Clinical
Special Stuff: Program Development/Evaluation Project, teaching opportunities, Violence Institute, Many community intervention opportunities, Individual private offices
Downsides: Pediatric C/L activities are limited, Expectation to become licensed in NJ after internship, location, elective rotations are only 4 hours/week.



I was actually really nervous about traveling to the University of Medicine & Dentistry of New Jersey (UMDNJ). Luckily, a friend of mine from work also had an interview there on the same day so we drove together. I had had a previous experience driving in Newark that was extremely scary so it brought out some anxiety to go there this time. We rolled in around 10:30 pm and were both nervous until we found our hotel, which was very nice. Crisis averted.

The structure of the interview day was a group overview of the program, two individual 45 minute interviews and a 45 minute small group interview. Most of the day was pretty routine. The program has a pretty specific core program and then also allows for some "electives." The core therapy experiences include general outpatient cases, groups, and work in the partial hospitalization program for kids with behavior problems. For assessment, they require interns provide crisis services in the ER in addition to 8 testing patients over the whole year. They also run something called a "Children's Mobilization and Response Unit" which actually goes to people's homes in the event of a safety emergency, such as an out of control child or suicidal child. The point of this service is to avoid inpatient admissions when the parents eventually bring the kids to the ER. There are some cool assessment experiences too such as Fetal Alcohol Syndrome Clinic and the opportunity to do a year-long rotation in neuropsychology. 

Another interesting and unique component to the program is the Core Performance Evaluation and Improvement Experience which is an opportunity for interns to work on some existing problem within the services UMDNJ provides. For example, helping doctors remember to screen for mental health issues in the ER. The idea is for interns to learn how to plan, evaluate and fix services, in addition to providing quality improvement for the hospital. They have an impressive list of electives that an intern can take; of which the interns can choose anywhere from 2 to 4 or 5 for the year. Some of the more interesting electives to me are a couple that use specific types of therapy, primary care consultation, and Youth Consultation Services which is group treatment for mothers and babies. Another interesting one is the Violence Institute which provides violence intervention programs in the schools. They also have a consultation-liaison elective but the current interns said that there are not many pediatric experiences. Although there are many many cool electives, interns only spend one half day a week doing the elective (about 4 hours a week). All of my primary interests are electives so that would mean I would be spending a minimal amount of time in my areas of interest. 

So I will explain the mini-group interview now, which was something I had not done before. They had four interns sit in a little circle facing each other, and discuss four different "topics" over the 45 minute period. While the interns were discussing, two faculty members observed and took notes. Two of the questions were case examples and we had to discuss an issue related to the hypothetical case. The other two questions were: 1. What has been the most frustrating part of your professional development and 2. What challenges do you forsee in working with an underserved inner city population. Neither of these questions are particularly tricky but the group you were in made all the difference.  My friend said her group was really friendly and focused on agreeing with each other and giving each other equal amounts of time to talk. My group, however, was more competitive and cutthroat and I had to literally cut people off to get a word in. I'm not the type to fight for the floor, I'm just as happy to sit back and listen, but that is not adaptive in this setting. Anyway, I did not like the group interview needless to say!

After the interview, both my friend and I drove to Philadelphia to fly out to our next interviews: mine was in Oklahoma.  

Oh by the way, here is an idea of the safety around Newark - all interns are required to leave the hospital by 5. Another sign is the full-porch bars as seen in the picture below.  I have never seen something like this!