[alecvolkman]

Hello All:

I'll be doing my residency at the Hurley Medical Center. I have never been to the area, but I have heard both positive and negative about it.

My question is regarding room & board. Where should I be looking? I would prefer a place which is safe and quiet. Also, how's the cost of living like?

I would also love to know what to expect at Hurley Medical Center, e.g. the ratio of emergencies, the demographics and socio-economics it caters to, etc.

Thanks!

Alec

[caspper69]

Originally Posted by alecvolkman

Hello All:

I'll be doing my residency at the Hurley Medical Center. I have never been to the area, but I have heard both positive and negative about it.

My question is regarding room & board. Where should I be looking? I would prefer a place which is safe and quiet. Also, how's the cost of living like?

I would also love to know what to expect at Hurley Medical Center, e.g. the ratio of emergencies, the demographics and socio-economics it caters to, etc.

Thanks!

Alec

Where are you from or where have you lived? What type of environment are you comfortable with? Do you need to be around others that share a common race, political affiliation, economic status or educational background?

What type of housing budget will you be working with?

Honestly, Flint does have some areas that are quite nice, but it also has some areas that are less than desirable from a crime perspective. Grand Blanc is a nice suburb that's about 15 minutes south on I-75, and it's as upper-middle class, suburban and lilly-white as you can get. There's also several rural areas that are within a short commute of Flint on either I-69 or I-75. Realistically, you could live as far South as East Lansing (a college town) or down in northern Oakland County (Clarkston, Ortonville, or Auburn Hills) and have ~1 hour commute to Hurley. I wouldn't recommend it, but you *could* do those things.

I guess it depends a ton on what you want out of your living area. But the fact of the matter is you should probably live in a place that has the amenities you want, the cheapest rent you can find, where you still feel safe at odd hours. You're going to be doing your residency, so it'll be ridiculous hours for 4 days, a day of rest, a day of drinking, another day of rest, then back to 70+ hours for 4 days (I guess if your scheduling is that lucky). Home is a place to sleep and regroup. Worry about the tough location questions until you're done.

I wish I could offer more specifics about Hurley, but I don't know much about it, and your Google-foo is probably just as effective as mine-- well, unless you're lazy.

[nkt10]

Davison, Grand Blanc, and Flushing are all nice surrounding areas to live in around Flint. I would consider all three safe and quiet communities. Hurley is a great hospital, in my opinion. Excellent trauma center.

[Tricia819]

"Realistically, you could live as far South as East Lansing"

Lansing is west of Flint, not south, but would be a pretty long commute to Flint.

It is dirt cheap to live in Flint. There are some BEAUTIFUL loft apartments in downtown Flint, that are a stone throw from Hurley, and downtown proper has one of the lowest crime rates in the city. Sylvester Mannor is also nice (at least it was when I lived there years ago), and also really close to Hurley. If you were interested in buying a place, I'd consider the East Village area.

A bit more to live in the surrounding suburbs. Out of those mentioned, I'd take Davison. Grand Blanc/Fenton is too hoity toity. If you choose Flushing make sure you get west of Elms rd. Since the low income housing opened, it's gotten a little...questionable. That could just be me though, something about Flushing creeps me out.

Hurley has it's pro's and cons. It's the city hospital, in a bad part of town. Flint is the violent crime capital of the U.S. so the ER is ALWAYS swamped. Lots of gun shot victims, it's where the inmates are taken. It seems to be the first stop for the drug seekers. On the plus side it's the only NICU (although crack babies aren't exactly a plus) and burn unit in the area. It's also the closest children's hospital in the area, although the more serious cases are taken to Children's Hospital in Ann Arbor.

I've lived here for 34 years, so if you need any other info feel free to send me a message.

[JCampe1]

Welcome to Flint and Michigan! The very challenges faced by the Flint community will provide you a rich residency training experience, especially since most of the Hurley residency programs are integrating public health into the curriculum. (Examples - monthly assignments to local homeless shelters, participation in community health fairs and screenings, and continuity care in local clinics.)

As for accommodations, check out the Hurley Graduate Medical Education web page for key information about the community - here's a link: [url=http://education.hurleymc.com/gme/community]Flint and Genesee County, MI - Graduate Medical Education | Hurley Medical Center Education & Research - Flint, Michigan[/url]. Also, medical students and residents have found lovely places to live not only through the housing locator (at the link above) but also at: [url=http://www.thedurant.com/]The Durant[/url] (a historic hotel in downtown Flint that has been turned into gorgeous apartments), [url=http://www.grandblancapartments.com/index.php/fox-hill-glens]Fox Hill Glens | Grand Blanc Apartments - Fox Hill Glens - Stonehenge Gates - Fountain Pointe[/url] (spacious apartments with pool, tennis courts, fitness center - close to highway, Walmart, movie theater, Oliver T gourmet food store - and a rent discount for medical workers), and lots of other nice places. You might go to Google Maps and type in "apartments" and "Grand Blanc, MI" or "apartments" and "Flint MI." The north end of Grand Blanc is a very quick drive to Hurley Medical Center.

And for the types of cases you'll see, that really depends on your type of residency. Which program will you be joining? In general, though, because Hurley is a safety-net hospital with a mission to treat everyone, regardless of ability to pay, you will see more advanced disease states and patients from a wider socioeconomic range than you would if you were training in a different institution. Physicians send their patients to Hurley because it provides excellent care - and patients come to Hurley because they know Hurley will take good care of them.

Hurley also is a Children's Hospital, plus provides the region's highest level of trauma care, neonatal intensive care, pediatric intensive care, high-risk maternal-fetal medicine, burn care, pediatric rehabilitation, pediatric emergency care, and more. Its 443 beds primarily serve about 600,000 in a three-county region, plus specialty care (e.g., pediatric oncology, organ transplant, etc.) in 15 counties. Its emergency & trauma center treated >90,000 patients in 2011 and recently opened doors to enlarged, state-of-the-art quarters at Hurley and includes specialized geriatric training and physical design elements to best care for the growing older population. Hurley also has the region's only home-based (award-winning), pediatric asthma disease management program.

I think you'll have an excellent training and living experience in the Flint area. Hurley has a Resident Wellbeing Committee that organizes fun activities to help residents get to know each other faster, which is especially important for the multicultural cadre of resident physicians - another benefit of training at Hurley. You may want to contact your residency program to see if someone from the Wellbeing Committee can help you out with some of your transitional questions.