Applying to residency is equally exciting as it is stressful. I found myself searching for any information I could find about different programs and what made each program different. During my hours of searching I found that the AMA’s site, FREIDA ONLINE, was one of the most useful resources.FREIDA is an online database of all ACGME regulated residency and fellowship training programs. The FREIDA database is searchable by specialty or by state. The amount of information available for each program is truly staggering, here is just a short list of some of the information you can find out about each training program:
- Program director name and contact information
- Length of the program
- Institution and hospital affiliations
- Size of the residency
- Number of applicants interviewed
- Number of faculty
- Average work hours
- Weeks of call per year
- Amount of didactic lecture
- Salary information
- Vacation weeks
- Benefits information
Now that I know the inner workings of my residency, I looked back at the FREIDA profile to see if the information is correct, and I can vouch for the database, it is spot on. They provide an analysis of the averages of many of those statistics for each specialty. So, you can compare the ‘hours worked in a week’ of a program you are interested in with the national average. Click here to access the ‘training statistics’.
My name is Andrew and I am a first year resident training to be an ophthalmologist. I created ShortWhiteCoats to provide medical students, residents, and the public with all the information I spent so many hours looking for during medical school.
