should I consider something less competitive or do I have a prayer?

[heathermed]

Hello...

I just began my 3rd year rotations and have started with IM. Even though I have many years before I have to apply for a fellowship, I wanted to get some advice.

My step 1 score is: 234/98
My GPA is 3.3 at this point.
I go to a carribbean school: Ross U
I am a US citizen.

I always wanted to do cardio and I realize that it is incredibly competitive, so I was wondering if there is anything I can do now or perhaps en route to make myself more competitive. The fact that I am a carib student is one big strike against me, and I'm assuming my step score is low compared to most that match into cardio.

any help would be greatly appreciated!
It's really hard to do research for me because my school has no affiliation with a research oriented program/hospital and we change hospitals every rotation.

please advise....

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[Jac1]

Step score is ok. Try doing some quality research now itself, if you can with a well known figure. Aim for Chief residency. I think these should help you in and if you are a XX chromosomel and can apply widely, you have a better chance.

 

[drdavemd]

Step score should be fine. There are likely some programs out there who will not look favorably on your medical school, but this is not universal. Focus on the things you can change and how you can stand out in the application and interview process. There is a lot of advice in several other threads on how to be the best applicant possible.

Good luck!

 

[dragonfly99]

I would not give up at this point.
Your step score is fine, and not lower than most who apply to cardiology.
The best thing you can do at this point is try to get yourself into the best university residency program that you can get into. that involves throwing yourself into 3rd year to do the best you can. Try to set up 2-3 research months during 4th year if you can. That may involve cold-calling and emailing basic science or other research faculty at places like Emory, Duke, Baylor, Washington U that do a lot of cardiology research.

I know others have and will disagree on this board, but I don't feel that being female is likely to help your application at all. There may be a few places that are looking to recruit women, but my experience was there are an equal number or more who don't really want women, or at least not too many, simply because they fear that you will become pregnant, or feel that women are not tough enough to do cardiology. There were a couple of women @my residency program who didn't match into cards despite having higher step scores and I think being better residents than male applicants who got in. That's a little anecdotal however...there are good applicants of both genders who don't get in, particularly on the 1st try, which I think leads some male applicants to feel they somehow got shafted unfairly by some female applicant, or perhaps an underrepresented minority,but I think the overall numbers have shown about an equal acceptance/rejection rate for both.

The main stumbling block for you is being a Ross grad, but nothing you can do but work hard. Your Step 1 doesn't suck and you have a long way to go here...I wouldn't give up before you even begin. Part of this depends on how far you are willing to go to get this...would you be willing to do a 3 year residency, then a 2 year research fellowship, just to get into cardiology? This is what some foreign grads, and some US grads, end up doing. Would you be willing to do a cardiology fellowship in some rural place, or a cold place in the Midwest?

 

[Trifling Jester]

Get into the best university program you possibly can for medicine residency, preferably one that has a history of taking its own residents for cardiology each year as well as being able to place its own residents into outside programs for cardiology.

I think that being female will help you at some programs and hurt you at others. There's nothing you can do about that. I'm not a female, but if I was looking at medicine residencies I might consider ranking those programs lower if their cardiology program didn't have any female fellows. Just a thought. The reason it's so important is because your best shot at a cards spot is going to be at your home institution.

-The Trifling Jester

 

[dragonfly99]

I agree w/the Jester.
However, sometimes it doesn't help that much to look at how many female vs. male fellows are in a program. The program where I matched for cards didn't have any at all when I applied there, but I could tell they were cool and open-minded (turned out to be true). Especially for some of the smaller programs, they can end up with no women just due to the fact that there are only 18% or so women overall...if a program only has 3-4/year then sometimes you end up w/no women. Also, sometimes women (or underrepresented minorities) tend not to rank these type programs very high, because some people don't want to be "the only one" at their program, as it may sometimes focus the attention of others on that trainee (can be a good or bad thing, depending on the type of notice you attract).