Hey readers. It's been a while since I've written, but I hope you're still following.
Life has been pretty good so far. It's been amazing seeing a lot of my friends match into their future specialties, and seeing where they'll be going all over the United States.
Students in my school who applied to ENT and ortho generally matched well, but there were a few who were left unmatched. Ortho was especially competitive this year, and I can't even imagine how difficult getting into derm and plastics was.
If you're getting close to applying, or just starting out in medical school and want to get an idea of the different programs out there, check out FREIDA (http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/education-careers/graduate-medical-education/freida-online.page), a database of different residency programs.
One of the most difficult aspects of the residency application time is ranking. I heard of a lot of the 4th years interviewing at really competitive places, so they ranked them highly. But there were a few who didn't get their top choice, and some who didn't match at all. I think it's a situation where "just because you interview there, doesn't mean they'll take you," just like medical school, but if you don't match, you don't have a job for next year, and it's even harder to get into residency after that, especially if it's something like ortho, ENT, or plastics.
Observations on match day: the majority of students actually went into primary care (medicine, pedi, med/peds), and we saw less students going into surgical specialties.
I'll be gearing up for the residency application gauntlet pretty soon, but I feel pretty comfortable about where I want to apply because I had been looking at programs (in all different types of specialties) since about the first year of med school.
I'll be meeting with the chair of the department of the specialty I want to explore now, and I'm pretty excited. I'm lucky that at my institution there are a lot of people high up who are excited about teaching and helping students learn more about the field. The residents are very much the same.
Next entry, I'll be talking about the importance of the reputation of the medical school you go to, and the calibre of the residency program you go to, and what it means for your future.
Thanks for reading and following.
Can you please comment on the importance of the reputation of one's medical school for residency programs? I stand a good shot of getting into great private schools and my good state school this application round, and I'm trying to decide if there's an advantage in going private school. Thank you! Love your blog.
ReplyDeleteHi Brittany! Thanks for keeping up with my blog.
ReplyDeleteI've actually been meaning to write an entry about how the name and reputation of a school come into play when it comes to residency applications.
I've spent a little over a year working with senior attendings and I've learned a lot about what they're looking for in residency applicants (most if it came up during the fall interview season).
I didn't know this when I was applying to medical school, but I've learned that name and reputation of a school matter a lot. It's really significant, which surprised me. I didn't think academic pedigree came into play so much when applying for residency, I thought it was more of a law school thing.
But from what I learned, going to a well-known, well-respected school will look better for you than going to a school that isn't quite recognized, or that people have trouble finding on a map.
But remember that Step exam scores matter a lot, too. A Step score is a make or break type of thing, and a lot of residency programs have a certain Step score cut off even for interviews. There are other things they take into consideration, like research publications and of course, clinical grades.
I hope that helps, keep an eye out for an entry elaborating more on these things!