M3 looking at making the switch to ortho, advice please

[Handinhand]

Hi everyone,

I'm an M3 at a medium ranked medical school looking to get some advice. Up until recently I've been dead set on EM, but I've done some serious thinking and have realized that I don't think it's the field for me, or at least I'm not sure, and would like to explore some other interests. I did a lot of shadowing of an ortho doc during undergrad, and although I loved the surgeries, I figured it would be too competitive for me and the lifestyle too busy. I've come to realize though that there are no great life-style residencies (besides popping pimples and reading films), and I'd rather work hard doing something I enjoy than do something I don't enjoy that allows me a little more time to mountain bike. So, with that said:

Step 1: 250
Pre-clinical grades: Mostly high passes, a few honors, a few passes.
Research: Summer between M1 & M2 I worked on an injury prevention project in Vietnam for 2 months dealing with road injury prevention and increasing helmet usage. The project is not technically finished until the end of my M3 year, and I might get a poster presentation at my school out of it. Besides that, no other research.

I just wanted to get some advice on how competitive I am so far and what things I can do over the next year and a half to make myself a good ortho applicant? There is no 3rd year ortho rotation we can do at my school, but I have a radiology month and anesthesiology month coming up with weekends free -- I was going to email the ortho department and see if I could come in a few times during that time.

As far as research, should I try and get involved in some ortho research? If so, should I try and do quick little case reports or larger projects?

Thanks in advance for all your advice!

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[joker2400]

Hi everyone,

I'm an M3 at a medium ranked medical school looking to get some advice. Up until recently I've been dead set on EM, but I've done some serious thinking and have realized that I don't think it's the field for me, or at least I'm not sure, and would like to explore some other interests. I did a lot of shadowing of an ortho doc during undergrad, and although I loved the surgeries, I figured it would be too competitive for me and the lifestyle too busy. I've come to realize though that there are no great life-style residencies (besides popping pimples and reading films), and I'd rather work hard doing something I enjoy than do something I don't enjoy that allows me a little more time to mountain bike. So, with that said:

Step 1: 250
Pre-clinical grades: Mostly high passes, a few honors, a few passes.
Research: Summer between M1 & M2 I worked on an injury prevention project in Vietnam for 2 months dealing with road injury prevention and increasing helmet usage. The project is not technically finished until the end of my M3 year, and I might get a poster presentation at my school out of it. Besides that, no other research.

I just wanted to get some advice on how competitive I am so far and what things I can do over the next year and a half to make myself a good ortho applicant? There is no 3rd year ortho rotation we can do at my school, but I have a radiology month and anesthesiology month coming up with weekends free -- I was going to email the ortho department and see if I could come in a few times during that time.

As far as research, should I try and get involved in some ortho research? If so, should I try and do quick little case reports or larger projects?

Thanks in advance for all your advice!

Definitely do this. Smaller projects would probably be better., due to the fact you can get more projects done. I've talked to an M4 that cranked out 10+ presentations between the start of M3 and ERAS submission

Disclaimer: I'm an M2 and this is based off of experiences of M4s that I have talked to and advice from residents and attendings.

 

[Handinhand]

Any advice on how to go about this? I don't just want to email someone in ortho and be like "I want to do research, what have you got for me?" At the same time, I don't really want to draw it out over months having meetings with people trying to see if anybody has any work they'd like a medical student's help with; as I have two relatively easy months ahead that I'd like to take advantage of.

 

[joker2400]

My most successful emails have been to attendings with many pubs listed in pubmed. The phrase "I am interested in research, do you have any projects that I can help with?" is usually included after a brief intro. Email your school's ortho PD, he will know who has projects most likely or go straight to the chair (where my emails usually got directed).

 

[histidine]

If you're set on ortho, definitely talk to the ortho residency program director at your school. He/she can connect you to faculty doing research and help you identify programs you should rotate at next year. Getting to know the faculty at your home institution is extremely important for getting a good letter of rec and for helping you network into other programs.

 

[Handinhand]

Any advice on what kinds of projects I should be looking for or ask about? When you say smaller projects what does that entail for ortho specifically? Sorry for the ignorance, my only research experience is bench work from undergrad and this global health work in med school; neither of which move very fast so I'm just trying to get an idea of how to efficiently maximize the next year and a half.

Thank you very much for the help so far!

 

[Serous Demilune]

Any advice on what kinds of projects I should be looking for or ask about? When you say smaller projects what does that entail for ortho specifically? Sorry for the ignorance, my only research experience is bench work from undergrad and this global health work in med school; neither of which move very fast so I'm just trying to get an idea of how to efficiently maximize the next year and a half.

Thank you very much for the help so far!

Chart review would be ideal. Collecting enough new data for a project can be a huge pain in the butt and takr a lot of time. Things go much more quickly if you have the data in hand when you start.

 

[joker2400]

Any advice on what kinds of projects I should be looking for or ask about? When you say smaller projects what does that entail for ortho specifically? Sorry for the ignorance, my only research experience is bench work from undergrad and this global health work in med school; neither of which move very fast so I'm just trying to get an idea of how to efficiently maximize the next year and a half.

Thank you very much for the help so far!

Hop on an existing project or do case reports. Our residents always need help. If you start a chart review from scratch with no background in that type of research, you will probably only do the on project.

 

[Serous Demilune]

Hop on an existing project or do case reports. Our residents always need help. If you start a chart review from scratch with no background in that type of research, you will probably only do the on project.

Agree except that case reports are now being held to much higher standards for publication than previously. It needs to be something exceptionally rare/weird for a journal to publish it.

 

[Handinhand]

Okay, going to email the chairman tomorrow.

As far as my grades, will a few passes in M1M2 years hurt me at all? Also, I put 250 as my step 1 score to keep some future anonymity, my actual score is within 3 points of 250; Is this a good enough score for ortho these days?

Is there a regional bias in ortho? If I'm from the Midwest will it be hard for me to go out west to say Oregon, Colorado or Utah, or to east coast states like North Carolina?

Thanks again guys!

 

[joker2400]

Okay, going to email the chairman tomorrow.

As far as my grades, will a few passes in M1M2 years hurt me at all? Also, I put 250 as my step 1 score to keep some future anonymity, my actual score is within 3 points of 250; Is this a good enough score for ortho these days?

Is there a regional bias in ortho? If I'm from the Midwest will it be hard for me to go out west to say Oregon, Colorado or Utah, or to east coast states like North Carolina?

Thanks again guys!

Word from the administrative chiefs at one of the local programs:
average is still just over 240
they don't care about preclinical unless you make AOA
Away rotations are important to go west or south but don't seem to mean as much to go to the NE

 

[womp]

I would definitely rotate in North Carolina if you're not from that area. It's still a Southern state. If you look at a lot of their current residents, many are from NC, Virginia, SC, Georgia.

Cool state though. Beautiful environment, good infrastructure, young people and relatively affordable.

Do rotations at places you want to go, not where you are trying to game into.

 

[Handinhand]

So I've been making an effort to meet with faculty members and asking about research, and there's nothing that's come up yet. I still have a few faculty meetings set up over the next few weeks, but I'm just curious how necessary ortho research is/ how much will it hurt me if there's no research for me to get involved in? Will my Vietnam research be sufficient?

Also, in the weekends I have off it was suggested to me that I page the resident on call and ask if I can join in on any cases. Not ideal, but since we don't have any 3rd year exposure available to us it's all I've got; although I've not had surgery yet so I'm not sure if it will look bad that I don't know OR protocols, scrubbing in, etc...

 

[Sam212]

You have good scores, I think you'll likely get in without research.

As far as getting in on the weekend, it's good for exposure if you can show up for rounds, given that residents don't mind, scrub some cases and what not. Expectstions for M3s are basic, show up early, be enthusiastic, and willing to learn. No one expects you to show up and know the whole rockwood. Work hard and enjoy it, it's awesome.

 

[Handinhand]

A little update to this thread.

I was offered to write up a case report with an ortho professor at my home institution and offered another retrospective chart review with a peds ortho faculty member. The case study should be no problem to complete, and the peds faculty member appreciated my situation and said this is something he believes can be completed and published before applications are due in (at least getting an abstract done and maybe going to a conference or two, in his words). If I could get both of these done and published, would this be a big boost to my application?

I've completed Medicine, Radiology, and Anesthesiology so far this year, and got an Honors in all 3.

Given personal circumstances, I am very likely to end up in Ohio or in the DC area for residency. I was thinking of possibly trying to away rotate at Ohio State, and a DC program. Was looking for advice on the quality of the OSU ortho program, and what programs in DC/Baltimore I should look at that I would be competitive at.

Thanks!

 

[Handinhand]

Also to add on to my last post: When should I think about taking Step 2? It seems like my step 1 score is about average so ortho, so should I think about taking it sooner or holding off until later in M4 year?

 

[Handinhand]

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