I spent May 2017 in Anchorage and had a great experience at ANMC. I ended up only having 3 weeks there and did 1 week in the ICU, 1 week in a mix of clinics (Rheum, Endo, Pall Care) and 1 week of ID consults. In general if there for 4 weeks I’d recommend 2 weeks in the ICU to get the hang of it and a range of experiences and I think the staff there prefer it for some continuity. Schedule in the ICU was M-F 7am to 7pm for sign out (able to leave early some days). I worked with Dr. Worth who is great and trained at UW! I also really enjoyed the clinic experience – great way to learn more about the native health system and how subspecialty care is delivered to such a broad geographic area. Great teaching too and pretty relaxed schedule. Lastly ID consults was great with really interesting cases and fun attendings who love to teach. I was initially given a pretty short list of options of what to do but when I got there but I found that people were happy to have me in most clinics and if you ask they will make most things work.

As far as Anchorage itself it’s a very livable small city and easy to adapt to quickly. People at the hospital were all really welcoming and eager to provide recommendations for what to do and see. May was a fun time of year there as spring was really just starting but days are long. Be sure to check if hikes in the area are still icy/snowy! For housing AirBnB worked well to find a spot – midtown isn’t the most attractive part of town but halfway between downtown and ANMC. Start housing search early if you want to do a monthlong rental especiall in summer/spring. Enterprise renal car through UW also very easy to do.

I loved visits to homer (halibut fishing!), seward (kenai fjords tour/kayaking), hikes around anchorage (power line trail, eagle river nature park, flat top).