Anchorage, Alaska. Home to bears, moose, liver dialysis and abundant subclavian central venous access. I chose to spend all 4 weeks of the rotation in the ICU and would definitely recommend the experience (although I hear that residents enjoy their time with all specialties up here).

At ANMC all critically ill patients end up in one unit under the care of the ICU team, so you will see patients admitted with trauma and other “surgical problems” (NSTI, ICH requiring craniectomy etc.) in addition to the things we are more used to managing. If the variety doesn’t interest you it’s possible to pick up only the more classic medicine patients, but you will at least have the opportunity to manage a broader spectrum of critical illness. You will probably get to do lots of procedures (all manner of central lines, bronchoscopy) and intubate relatively often if you are so inclined. A more unique thing you will see here is MARS “liver dialysis” which gets used for acute liver failure and Tylenol overdose. The attendings and other hospital staff are very friendly and a lot of fun to work with.

At least in the summer there is lots to do here, four weekends is just not enough time to see all the cool stuff in the area. The hiking/wildlife is incredible. Homer and Seward make great weekend trips. This also seems like the place to be if you like fishing.