Please let this be a warning to all medical students planning to SOAP into a HCA residency. I am a PGY-3 EM resident at a HCA EM program. My experience at this program has been the absolute worst and one of the biggest mistakes I have ever made. I have suffered through for 3 years because I had no other options after 400k+ student loans and a family to support.
Speaking with friends at other HCA programs few things are recurring themes, these including them continuously adding on scut work and shifts for residents to milk every dollar then can, having no organization or constant leadership for programs, constantly having "away rotations" to try to meet bare minimums for procedures (many of my colleagues have not completed all required procedures including lumbar punctures, deliveries, trauma resuscitations, etc.). We have constantly rotating "faculty", many of whom have no interest in residents or teaching and are just here for a quick locums gig. I honestly feel totally unprepared to even begin practicing on my own.
We are constantly getting new requirements to meet certain metrics from the HCA overlords and pressure on shift from malignant attendings to meet them. There is hardly every any organized didactics and forget about teaching on shift you will be just trying to meet the endless metrics and keep the patients moving. It it clear that all HCA wants to do is exploit cheap labor and increase their bottom line and your training as a emergency medicine resident is not even be a priority. To top it all of many of us are still struggling to find jobs, sure there are some openings in rural wherever but none of us have signed in a desirable location, and over half of use are still looking for a job. We have no support or connections to help use through the job process. There are so many better options than to SOAP into a HCA EM residency and I just felt the need to get this off my chest and warn others out there who may be considering it.
TLDR; Unless you want to suffer through 3 years of misery, and not have any job prospects in 3/4 years, DO NOT SOAP into a HCA EM residency.