Know much do you have to gun for EM?

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Brahventus

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Compared to other competitive specialties? Will getting good board scores and clerkship grades be enough?

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Gunner alert!!!

You need AOA, 260+ Step 1/2, honor everything, 10 SLOEs, and multiple published journals.

Jk. See the answer above.
 
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What else is there? Yes, getting good board scores and good clerkship grades will guarantee you a spot at an EM residency somewhere unless you are certifiably, hopelessly odd with even the slightest social interaction.

Well I was at first really interested in ortho and it seemed like the ortho gunners really had to make an effort to make themselves known in the ortho department through research and forming relationships early with the chairman and PD. I'm about to be a second year so wasn't sure if I'm late in the game if I were interested in EM.
 
Whatever you want to go into, you need to maximize your Step 1 score to the extent that your innate abilities will allow. Focus on that, it will work regardless of specialty choice. Your cart/horse ordering needs a little calibration. Make a great Step 1, schmoozing the PD becomes much easier if that is your thing. Yes, at some point your ability to make social connections will matter. That time is not now. Your Step 1 is vastly more important than being 2nd or 3rd author on a manuscript.
 
You need to score well but there are many more programs then when I trained so it's doable. I don't think it will ever be as hard to get as fields where they have a very few number of spots.
 
It goes without saying the Step 1 score is important. While clerkship grades are important too, make absolutely certain you get good SLOEs/SLORs (standardized letters of recommendation). Basically, ace your ER month and make sure you work enough with one particular attending (preferably PD or APD) to get a good letter of rec from them. Research, publications, etc not as important.

Also SAEM has a national conference every year - they have a medical student forum where all the PDs come down and have lunch with med students. It's a great way to network and gives you something to talk about later with them.
 
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Ignoring the thinly veiled taste of "How little can I do?", I never understood attempts to categorize the networking, friendly social interaction, and small acts of kindness as "gunning", or some other negative verb, when they are normal human behavior in any professional setting not involving a decade of hiding inside the cocoon of standardized testing.

Ripping pages out of library textbooks and spreading misinformation is gunning. Getting to know the handful of people interested in the same thing as you over the 4 years you work in their institution is called being social.
 
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Ignoring the thinly veiled taste of "How little can I do?", I never understood attempts to categorize the networking, friendly social interaction, and small acts of kindness as "gunning", or some other negative verb, when they are normal human behavior in any professional setting not involving a decade of hiding inside the cocoon of standardized testing.

Ripping pages out of library textbooks and spreading misinformation is gunning. Getting to know the handful of people interested in the same thing as you over the 4 years you work in their institution is called being social.

Agree, but I think the practical definition of gunning is "doing something most other MSs aren't that could increase your career success". The derision is mostly just a herd animal thing... MSs are not much different from other people in that respect.
 
You don't have to gun if you're a US allopathic student applying to only EM. In 2014, if you got a 231-240 step 1, you had a 97% of matching EM. If you got a 221-230, you had a 95% chance. If you got a 211-220, you'd still have a 90% chance of matching somewhere. PDs care a lot more about fit and letters of evaluations from your away rotations (SLOEs). You can't just score well and have an absolute crap personality. PDs want someone they'd be willing to work with.

Don't sweat it man.
 
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