How many days of the ASA conference would benefit a med student?

[otherstuff12321]

Hi all,

I’m a 4th year med student planning to attend the ASA conference to help with my application. I’m short on money so I was wondering how many days of the conference will benefit med students’ applications.

Thank you

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[Ronin786]

If you're not presenting, basically just the program meet and greet. And that's only helpful if you find some way to figure out which bloke on the table is the PD and charm them in a way that the 1000 other med students that are there can't.

I did the whole "hand out your resume" thing and turned it into 1 interview. Wasn't a great program anyways, but as a non-traditional applicant it was worth my time. Having done it from the residency side, I get why it's so hard to remember any of the medical students who show up.

 

[UscGhost]

Not worth your time in terms of applications. They won't remember you from the hundreds of others

 

[cchoukal]

What is your goal and how do you perceive attending will help your application? It’s not likely you’d randomly run into PDs. Is there a mentoring session or a student meet and greet? You could
Try targeting these sessions, but I agree with the others who’ve said this is likely low yield. Big picture: I’m not seeing the connection between attending ASA and a tangible improvement in your application.

 

[otherstuff12321]

What is your goal and how do you perceive attending will help your application? It’s not likely you’d randomly run into PDs. Is there a mentoring session or a student meet and greet? You could
Try targeting these sessions, but I agree with the others who’ve said this is likely low yield. Big picture: I’m not seeing the connection between attending ASA and a tangible improvement in your application.

I’m a non-ciziten USMD student with decent stats, but I’ll need an H1B visa for residency which programs are super hesitant to provide.

Ideally, I was hoping to go to the conference to make my existence known to these programs so they would be more likely to consider my application. Especially so since anesthesia is skyrocketing in competitiveness lately according to local PDs. Most of my anesthesia-geared classmates are attending this conference too. Maybe it won’t help much, but I think I’d like to play it safe.

 

[IMGASMD]

I’m a non-ciziten USMD student with decent stats, but I’ll need an H1B visa for residency which programs are super hesitant to provide.

Ideally, I was hoping to go to the conference to make my existence known to these programs so they would be more likely to consider my application. Especially so since anesthesia is skyrocketing in competitiveness lately according to local PDs. Most of my anesthesia-geared classmates are attending this conference too. Maybe it won’t help much, but I think I’d like to play it safe.

Then play it safe. If you have the means and/or time, I would just go. Don’t wanna have “what if….” regrets later.
With your stats if you are a citizen, then you’re good. I don’t know all the visa requirements, but know a few people just get hitched to (partially) solve all their woes.

Ps. To add, I would look at bigger programs, which have the resources to get legal help. Or smaller newer programs, that may need people to pass boards…..

 

[cchoukal]

Still not sure i understand HOW going will help. How will you “make your existence known,” and to whom? If you blow a lot of money walking around the conference center hoping to bump into someone influential, I think you’ll be disappointed. As above, is there a plan for how you hope to achieve that goal? Are there sessions with PDs to facilitate meet-ups?

 

[IMGASMD]

Still not sure i understand HOW going will help. How will you “make your existence known,” and to whom? If you blow a lot of money walking around the conference center hoping to bump into someone influential, I think you’ll be disappointed. As above, is there a plan for how you hope to achieve that goal? Are there sessions with PDs to facilitate meet-ups?

There’s an evening of meet and greet… not sure if it’ll be live this year. I heard interviews would be virtual again…. Hate virtual interviews, learning, and meetings

 

[dabears505]

Sorry but I just don't see this as something that will help

 

[kidthor]

Tough call - The whole conference experience is becoming exorbitantly expensive.

I internally debate whether it’s worth it for myself to go because it’s so expensive and I end up missing days of work. Realistically for me it ends up costing (between the actual costs and missed days, etc) 8K or so. That’s a lot of expense to sit through a bunch of sessions when I’d rather be on true vacation. So, tough to justify and compared to med students we’re rich.

In your situation it might be worth it to go to the PD/program meet and greet part. Does your marginal cost go up much beyond that (eg can you share a room with people and the like)?

 

[dabears505]

It's only worth it to go if it's coming out of some cme fund that you either use or lose.

 

[nimbus]

It's only worth it to go if it's coming out of some cme fund that you either use or lose.

Med students don’t have “CME” funds. They’re still in the “ME” phase. But they might get departmental funding to attend if they present a poster or something.

The ASA meeting is too big and too crowded for my taste. I prefer smaller meetings.

 

[kidthor]

Med students don’t have “CME” funds. They’re still in the “ME” phase. But they might get departmental funding to attend if they present a poster or something.

Yup. It does help for med students to link with their department to get an abstract out there also, which does give you a small CV bump. Some departments/schools might give small potatoes funds for students to go…. most don’t sadly.

 

[kidthor]

It's only worth it to go if it's coming out of some cme fund that you either use or lose.

Agreed. It’s ironic that true private practices allow for a very well funded untaxed CME fund and attendance at fun conferences (eg skiing, hawaii, Europe, and the like).

Academic institutions give paltry academic funds by comparison, even for their faculty giving talks and in leadership roles - much of it comes out of pocket post tax.

 

[abolt18]

Agreed. It’s ironic that true private practices allow for a very well funded untaxed CME fund and attendance at fun conferences (eg skiing, hawaii, Europe, and the like).

Academic institutions give paltry academic funds by comparison, even for their faculty giving talks and in leadership roles - much of it comes out of pocket post tax.

SOME academic places... We had 10K/yr in funds and 10 academic days for meetings (I used 5 for oral Boards and lost 5 due to staffing issues).

 

[nimbus]

Agreed. It’s ironic that true private practices allow for a very well funded untaxed CME fund and attendance at fun conferences (eg skiing, hawaii, Europe, and the like).

Academic institutions give paltry academic funds by comparison, even for their faculty giving talks and in leadership roles - much of it comes out of pocket post tax.

We have unlimited pretax CME money but it’s funded by our share of collections. It’s a way to avoid paying taxes on money that we spend on CME. Ultimately we still pay for it. It’s not coming out of anybody else’s pocket.

 

[Twiggidy]

It's only worth it to go if it's coming out of some cme fund that you either use or lose.

even then, since you most likely are still somewhat coming out of pocket, I’d just have the department pay for my ACE questions and do them on a beach. The society meetings have become more of an excuse for people to get out of town and party in a new city. For the residents they probably can get most of it paid for, but for an attending you’ll likely be spending money to have a few drinks with some old residency buddies.

If they ever have it in Vegas, especially during a football weekend, I might consider