Need clarification on specialties DO/Sports Med/Ortho Surg

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OHKman

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Aloha all...
This is my first time posting anything so please be kind...:) I am still figuring out this page, but I figure I post my question while I familiarize myself with the page.

About me:
-25, female
- graduated with BS Kinesiology and Rehab Science from UHawaii- Manoa
- 2 honor societies (NSCS, Golden Key)
- ~3.2 or 3.3 cumulative GPA
- work history in rehab clinics
- still have to go back to school (next year hopefully) to complete OChem 2 + Lab. I have NOT taken a calc class (but I have precalc class), and completed one semester of biochem

Interested in:
- osteopathic medicine
- orthopedic surgery

Future plans:
- go into US Navy for financial support

Confused about:
having a hard time distinguishing between a physiatrist, sports medicine, and whether or not these professions can do surgery. I have done research but am still not clear on the distinction between each specialty.

My understanding is that medical school is 4 years. On the 3rd year, you chose a specialty, the 4th year you train specifically in that specialty, followed by 4 years (or more) of residency on that specialty. Is the 3rd year also the year you chose whether or not you want to do surgery? I'm confused.

If I were to go into osteopathic med, and become a DO, would I choose to go into sports med then surgery, or head straight for surgery?

If anyone can kindly explain for me or point me in the direction of good sources to find out for myself.

Thanks so much!;)

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Your understanding of the medical field is clouded, as it's more commonly like this:
-Med school is 4 years (first 2 are preclinical with lectures/case-style learning, years 3-4 are clinical in nature, where you rotate among various specialties to learn about them and to determine what field you want to enter)
-Upon medical school conclusion, you'd be a doctor; then you'd go to residency for whatever specialty you want (ortho is 5-6 yrs, depending on location)
-Getting into ortho is not as easy as deciding you want to enter it; you'll need competitive board scores and grades
-Sports med is a totally different career path with different training lengths and requirements

Good sources for this stuff is wikipedia, and any residency selection tool that you can find online.

EDIT: Forgot to mention that you'd still have to finish your pre-med requirements at this time, and also take the MCAT. Your current GPA is at the low end, so you'd want to make sure you do well in your remaining premed classes and have a solid MCAT performance.
 
Your understanding of the medical field is clouded, as it's more commonly like this:
-Med school is 4 years (first 2 are preclinical with lectures/case-style learning, years 3-4 are clinical in nature, where you rotate among various specialties to learn about them and to determine what field you want to enter)
-Upon medical school conclusion, you'd be a doctor; then you'd go to residency for whatever specialty you want (ortho is 5-6 yrs, depending on location)
-Getting into ortho is not as easy as deciding you want to enter it; you'll need competitive board scores and grades
-Sports med is a totally different career path with different training lengths and requirements

Good sources for this stuff is wikipedia, and any residency selection tool that you can find online.

EDIT: Forgot to mention that you'd still have to finish your pre-med requirements at this time, and also take the MCAT. Your current GPA is at the low end, so you'd want to make sure you do well in your remaining premed classes and have a solid MCAT performance.


Thank you so much. It was indeed very clouded. I am glad you were able to respond.
Yes, I am aware of the MCATs and have received prep course materials through Princeton Review. I have all their books to review for 2015 MCAT. I just have to study it, but it will probably be a few years or so before I will actually take it and make steps to go to med school.
I know my GPA is pretty low, but according to my friend who got accepted to Johns Hopkins said that matriculation scores are realistically 3.1 and above. Regardless, I am planning to do very well and get high scores. I also do a lot of shadowing with various doctors and am trying to work at hospitals/clinic setting.

Thanks for your response!
 
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Thank you so much. It was indeed very clouded. I am glad you were able to respond.
Yes, I am aware of the MCATs and have received prep course materials through Princeton Review. I have all their books to review for 2015 MCAT. I just have to study it, but it will probably be a few years or so before I will actually take it and make steps to go to med school.
I know my GPA is pretty low, but according to my friend who got accepted to Johns Hopkins said that matriculation scores are realistically 3.1 and above. Regardless, I am planning to do very well and get high scores. I also do a lot of shadowing with various doctors and am trying to work at hospitals/clinic setting.

Thanks for your response!
There is no way that is correct, the average med school matriculant probably has a 3.6-3.8 GPA in undergrad. In general you are competing with an increasingly competitive crowd as you pursue a competitive specialty like orthopedic surgery.

To get into med school you need to be in the top percentile of undergrads (GPA and MCAT), then to get into orthopedic residency you need to be in the top percentile of medical students (clinical grades, Step 1). If you're pulling a 3.1 in undergrad you really need to assess if you have the ability to master the complexity and volume of material that you need to in the brief time period you have to study in medical school. I don't say this to be rude or dissuade you from pursuing a career in medicine, but to give you a bit of realistic perspective on what it takes to become a doctor.
 
There is no way that is correct, the average med school matriculant probably has a 3.6-3.8 GPA in undergrad. In general you are competing with an increasingly competitive crowd as you pursue a competitive specialty like orthopedic surgery.

To get into med school you need to be in the top percentile of undergrads (GPA and MCAT), then to get into orthopedic residency you need to be in the top percentile of medical students (clinical grades, Step 1). If you're pulling a 3.1 in undergrad you really need to assess if you have the ability to master the complexity and volume of material that you need to in the brief time period you have to study in medical school. I don't say this to be rude or dissuade you from pursuing a career in medicine, but to give you a bit of realistic perspective on what it takes to become a doctor.

I only say what he told me. He got in with that GPA but a high MCAT score. I doubt he got in based on "who he knows" since he was the first in his family to go to college and get accepted to medical school.

I know my GPA is on the low end but there's nothing I can do about it now that I've graduated. I worked fulltime 100% of the time I went to school and finished strong with all As. Life happens, but I am grateful that I've met many people along the way that have helped me with getting physicians to shadow and jobs in health care. I know my only shot of getting into med school is with a high MCAT score. Surely I am not the only one wanting to be a doctor with a low GPA in undergrad.

I do appreciate you telling me like it is and I am not offended or dissuaded. Thanks for the response!
 
Were you/are you a partier in undergrad/your 20s
 
Were you/are you a partier in undergrad/your 20s

Nope. Never been to parties in undergrad. Was never my scene. I worked full time, finishing at 1-2 am so I sacrificed some classes for sleep.
 
Why did you do so badly in college? I'm referring to your GPA (sorry for being so blunt)
 
Why did you do so badly in college? I'm referring to your GPA (sorry for being so blunt)

Lol......as I said earlier, I sacrificed classes for sleep sometimes. I did very well the first two years, and the very last semester. The semesters in between I didn't do so hot. I managed to get on the dean's list a few times including two honor societies but the cumulative GPA didn't turn out so good. I'm happy it's above a 3.0 though.

It also took me a long time to graduate because I didn't get the required classes the first year, and did the residency program the second year of college which is a year long process, so it set me back. Part of the requirements was to live off campus and have an off campus job. It was difficult for me sometimes to decide which was the most important : go to school and skip work or going to work to pay for school. The compromise was skipping some classes. I was lucky to find a job that gave me scholarships the rest of my school years so that helped...but in order to keep it I had to have a certain number of hours worked.
 
Lol sorry I didnt read any of the previous posts. What exactly is your question lol
 
Your understanding of the medical field is clouded, as it's more commonly like this:
-Med school is 4 years (first 2 are preclinical with lectures/case-style learning, years 3-4 are clinical in nature, where you rotate among various specialties to learn about them and to determine what field you want to enter)
-Upon medical school conclusion, you'd be a doctor; then you'd go to residency for whatever specialty you want (ortho is 5-6 yrs, depending on location)
-Getting into ortho is not as easy as deciding you want to enter it; you'll need competitive board scores and grades
-Sports med is a totally different career path with different training lengths and requirements

Good sources for this stuff is wikipedia, and any residency selection tool that you can find online.

EDIT: Forgot to mention that you'd still have to finish your pre-med requirements at this time, and also take the MCAT. Your current GPA is at the low end, so you'd want to make sure you do well in your remaining premed classes and have a solid MCAT performance.

Your understanding of sports medicine is clouded: https://www.aamc.org/cim/specialty/...dic_sports_medicine_-orthopaedic_surgery.html
 
I think necronomicon was referring to non-ortho "sports medicine," which is usually a fellowship out of Family med

Makes sense, just a poor description to OP who asked if you could go into sports medicine & still do orthopaedics. Made it seem like this wasn't possible, even though sports is one of the most popular ortho fellowships, if not the most, right?
 
Step 1:
Get into medical school depending on your home state GPA may be fine for state school. Pass O. Chen and boost GPA.Score high on MCAT.
Step 2:
Get out of medschool. You won't be able to work, but they will give you loan money. If you join the Navy at this step it could impact you match as specialty selection on some level is dependent on their need. Once in medical school do ortho research explore ortho, PM&R and family medicine. Figure out if you love surgery them Pick the one you like best. Score high on the boards. Match
Step 3:
Finish residency do research and match in sports medicine fellowship.

Right now just work on getting and shadow if you can
 
Golden Key is BS. They send that to every kid in college. As if you thought a 3.2 is in any 'honor' society.

You're gonna need luck getting into med school, let alone orthopaedics.
 
First step is to get into med school. After that youre on a clean slate and if you focus on just school (no jobs, that's what loans are for) then you can absolutely match Ortho. This whole concept of I got a low GPA therefore If I get to med school I'm already limited is bs. People, there are many factors why a GPA can be low. For instance I played D1 football so though my grades were not that bad, I probably had a lower gpa then most med students. Once I got to med school, it was a piece of cake compared to undergrad because I never had a whole day to myself as an undergrad. OP, during these few years before you apply can you do a post-bacc program or special masters to improve GPA a bit
 
OHKman

For perspective I am a PGY3 in a DO orthopedic program. I graduated with a 3.0 GPA and scored 28 on my MCAT. I did take a lot of upper level science courses such as 3 semester of Physical chemistry, thermodynamics, Calc 1-3 and diffEQ; and science GPA was ~3.4 but still not a stellar GPA or MCAT. Didnt really take college or MCAT all that serious. Somehow managed to get into med school. Got my s**t together and did fairly well in med school. Boards were 75-80th percentile and I was in the top 25% of class. Worked hard on my 3rd and 4th year rotations and scrounged up some honors. Had 4 interviews for ortho residency, received 3 "offers" and matched into my #1 program. This isnt all to brag, its to say that you dont have to have a 3.9 GPA, top 5% of med school class and score 95th percentile on boards just to be considered for ortho.

As others have said there is physiatry, physical medicine and rehabilitation, family medicine sports med fellowship and orthopedic sports med fellowship. The orthopedic is the only surgical field. As for the physiatry and PMR I believe they do some "procedures" but this may be limited to office type procedures for pain and function. They are probably an extension of physical therapy but generally represent the non-operative side of sports and rehab medicine. Take it with a grain of salt as I dont have direct experience with either type other than sports med ortho/fam med ortho. With that said ortho isnt always surgical and the sports med clinic has a robust non-operative patient population.

Good luck in your endeavors. Its good to have direction but I agree with some of the posters above. Concentrate on getting into medical school first. A great MCAT score can help make up lost ground with a poorer GPA. The textbooks are a good resource, there are online tools and probably apps available as well. Sample test questions with careful study of answer explanations is another excellent and recommended way to study. Once you pass that large hurdle then you develop a knowledge base your first two years of med school and decide on which residency you'd like to "match" during 3rd year, apply and hopefully match last half of 4th year. When deciding between DO and MD, if I could do it all over again I would've applied more broadly to MD schools as I only applied to two. All fellowships are MD accredited and sometimes DO arent considered for positions. Also there are >600 MD ortho spots compared to <100 DO spots. Though percentage of applicants to spots I'm unsure of?

Let me know if you have any other questions. PM if needed
 
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