Name and Shame: University of Tennessee Chattanooga Family Medicine Residency

Throwaway for obvious reasons.

Hey y’all, former resident of UT Chattanooga Family Medicine Residency Program here. 

I know interview season is under way and just want y‘all to stay safe out there. Residency is an extremely vulnerable time in your career and just want you to know the following information if you are applying here or know someone who is applying here.

While I am no longer there, it has come to my attention that another resident is facing a forced resignation from this program. Yes, this is MULTIPLE residents in the last couple years. 

This program has a culture of picking apart residents to undermine their performance. Then, they give vague feedback such as, “I’m just not sure about you.” No issues with patient care or getting work done, just “not sure about you.” They put residents on performance improvement plans for things such as speaking too loudly in public. When they decide they want to terminate, they say that you’re just not meeting milestones, but these milestones are not anything that they can define, even if you ask for specific things to improve on. They do not give feedback to help you improve and instead magnify minor mistakes; which let’s face it, should be expected in a trainee. Some possibly relevant info as to how they pick who to bully: the majority of these residents were people of color. 

Going to the GME office about the bullying is pointless. They just tell the resident in question to resign and refuse to investigate any claims. The GME just says they will make sure all procedures are followed for termination if you try to appeal. The current dean was formerly the PD and chair of the FM program and chooses to turn a blind eye to how the current chair and PD run things.

There is also no HR to appeal to regarding bullying. The residents are at the complete mercy of the program director and faculty. Even if you are applying to another specialty within this institution, know that if you are having any difficulties, the GME will not take you seriously or investigate and that there is no safe place to go for complaints or appeals. 

This program has SOAPed half its residents 3 out of the last 4 years and for good reason. If you for some reason end up SOAPing, please avoid this program if you value the future of your career. If you somehow end up here and have any issues during your intern year, my advice would be to complete your intern year, get your intern certificate, and leave and try to enter another program. Once you start second year, it becomes difficult to transfer to another program. You will also have to explain why you interrupted your residency training when you apply for licensing if you complete a transfer. Getting past intern year does not mean you are safe there and it would be a gamble for your future career. 

The best faculty and staff have also left due to issues with burnout and having to work with the current PD and chair. One attending was forced to resign earlier this year for vague reasons and another left due to burnout. This highlights that there is a decrease in the quality of attendings and education at this program.

There’s a lot more things that went on there, but I do want to stay anonymous and also don’t want to expose too many of the things other residents have told me. As much as I’d like to forget my time there, I just can’t in good conscience keep this to myself when we have all worked really hard to become doctors. They are ruining people’s careers just because they do not like them and the fact that they’ve done this to multiple residents in just a couple years is frightening. This is not the norm, most residencies want their residents to succeed and grow as doctors. 

TL;DR This program is malignant and the quality of education is decreasing every year. DNR if you’ve already interviewed with them and don’t be desperate enough to SOAP into it. It’s not worth the risk to your career. Also consider not applying to other specialties at this institution because the GME will not mediate or investigate any issues with your program. 

For legal reasons, the above is true to my knowledge at the time of this posting and came from multiple sources.