What do I need to do to land a highly competitive residency?

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fingerscrossedpremed

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I applied to medical school for this current cycle. I was rejected from both of my top schools because of a lack of clinical experience/leadership/research. I had no idea how important these things were for medical school until I applied. I thought it was 98% MCAT/GPA and then having just enough clinical experience to be positive that I wanted to be a physician. I found out the hard way this wasn't true. Fortunately, I squeaked into two DO schools because I had a solid MCAT score and great GPA.

So, I'll start medical school in late July! I'm crazy excited. However, I don't want to limit my choices for residencies like I limited myself in potential medical schools. I don't know what I want to do and I'm sure I'll change my mind several times in medical school. However, I want to be completely aware of what I need to do to be competitive for any residency I want to do. Do I simply need to do well in medical school and have good scores on the USMLE/COMLEX? Or is there more I need to do? I don't want to drop the ball twice!
Thanks!

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In my experience this is what is important:

Step1 > Step 2

Letters of recommendation from important academic faculty

Research

Those are the big 3, other than that unique extracurriculars, interesting personal statement, and being normal can go a long way ad well.
 
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Have a good personality and get along with others. You can have the greatest numbers in the world but if you are annoying to be around and you come across as an arrogant twit then you will find it hard to get what you want. No residency is going to want to suffer for 3-6 yrs.
 
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In my experience this is what is important:

Step1 > Step 2

Letters of recommendation from important academic faculty

Research

Those are the big 3, other than that unique extracurriculars, interesting personal statement, and being normal can go a long way ad well.
By important academic faculty, I'm assuming you mean professors from the basic sciences and not clinical instructors? And for research, does it have to be in the field for the residency that you're applying? I know that may sound silly, but if you don't know what field you're going into until the 3rd/4th year, that doesn't leave a lot of time to do research in the specific field you chose!
 
By important academic faculty, I'm assuming you mean professors from the basic sciences and not clinical instructors? And for research, does it have to be in the field for the residency that you're applying? I know that may sound silly, but if you don't know what field you're going into until the 3rd/4th year, that doesn't leave a lot of time to do research in the specific field you chose!

No I do not mean basic science letters. You won't have to worry about this until year 3&4, but you want to get letters from chairmen and PDs from major academic centers in the field you are applying for.

As far as research goes, anything is great but once you choose a field definitely get as much research there as possible.

FTR I had no research until my 3rd year. I busted my butt and was able to put 6 projects down on my app by the time I applied.
 
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In my experience this is what is important:

Step1 > Step 2

Letters of recommendation from important academic faculty

Research

Those are the big 3, other than that unique extracurriculars, interesting personal statement, and being normal can go a long way ad well.

Don't forget very strong clinical grades
 
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So, couple of things:

1) I think you're getting the cart way, way before the horse -- settle down a bit -- I can hear the pressured speech through the post -- Let's get through orientation and your first major course first -- I've seen people with fantastic GPAs/MCAT scores walk out after the first hour of biochem which was a "cursory review of medically significant General and Organic chemistry". No, I'm not kidding -- she flunked lunch and never came back.

2) Let's get you through first year at a reasonable level -- Again, I've seen fantastic GPA/MCAT score types flunk out when they actually have to know something, not just pick the best answer out of 5 given. Yes, we lost a few during our first lab related class as they couldn't tell the difference between a vein and nerve in a dissected specimen. No, I am not kidding. Also, this is the year for normal physiology of fun systems like Cardiopulmonary (everyone has some idea about these but the equations in pulmonary can be a bit taxing, especially if you have an instructor that's a cousin to John Boehner in that he tears up during most of the lectures), Renal ( every had a physiology researcher try to make something clinically relevant with a wooden personality?) -- but at least you can understand the concept of a coffee filter and have some idea of what the hell is going on, and finally --- Neuro where you have no freaking idea or frame of reference -- we had a course director who couldn't pronounce "bruits" even when we tried to coach him, physiology types who refused to be available the weekend before a major exam, a foreign professor who really, really loved the sodium/potassium ATPase pumps and a trailer-trash type psychologist who tried to teach midbrain functions -- holding it all together was the professor emeritus who tried to teach spinal tracts of medical significance and really loved his craft but there were only so many of him to go around -- curve was hellacious....you get the idea. At the end of the year is intro to path which claimed a few more from my class --

3) let's get you through 2nd year after the abuse of first --- this is where the things get nasty -- You get to learn path, medicine, pharm and clinical stuff all at once -- welcome to the saying, "if you're getting more than 4 hours of sleep a night, you're doing it wrong"....

Let's get through that successfully, and then see how well you need to do on boards to get into a residency, much less a competitive one ----
 
If you're NOT getting 6-8 hrs of sleep per night in years 1-2 (and most nights year 3) you're doing it wrong!
 
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So, couple of things:

1) I think you're getting the cart way, way before the horse -- settle down a bit -- I can hear the pressured speech through the post -- Let's get through orientation and your first major course first -- I've seen people with fantastic GPAs/MCAT scores walk out after the first hour of biochem which was a "cursory review of medically significant General and Organic chemistry". No, I'm not kidding -- she flunked lunch and never came back.

2) Let's get you through first year at a reasonable level -- Again, I've seen fantastic GPA/MCAT score types flunk out when they actually have to know something, not just pick the best answer out of 5 given. Yes, we lost a few during our first lab related class as they couldn't tell the difference between a vein and nerve in a dissected specimen. No, I am not kidding. Also, this is the year for normal physiology of fun systems like Cardiopulmonary (everyone has some idea about these but the equations in pulmonary can be a bit taxing, especially if you have an instructor that's a cousin to John Boehner in that he tears up during most of the lectures), Renal ( every had a physiology researcher try to make something clinically relevant with a wooden personality?) -- but at least you can understand the concept of a coffee filter and have some idea of what the hell is going on, and finally --- Neuro where you have no freaking idea or frame of reference -- we had a course director who couldn't pronounce "bruits" even when we tried to coach him, physiology types who refused to be available the weekend before a major exam, a foreign professor who really, really loved the sodium/potassium ATPase pumps and a trailer-trash type psychologist who tried to teach midbrain functions -- holding it all together was the professor emeritus who tried to teach spinal tracts of medical significance and really loved his craft but there were only so many of him to go around -- curve was hellacious....you get the idea. At the end of the year is intro to path which claimed a few more from my class --

3) let's get you through 2nd year after the abuse of first --- this is where the things get nasty -- You get to learn path, medicine, pharm and clinical stuff all at once -- welcome to the saying, "if you're getting more than 4 hours of sleep a night, you're doing it wrong"....

Let's get through that successfully, and then see how well you need to do on boards to get into a residency, much less a competitive one ----

Wow, if I'd gone to your medical school I just might have quit too! Your preclinical experience and my preclinical experience were not at all similar.
 
So, couple of things:

1) I think you're getting the cart way, way before the horse -- settle down a bit -- I can hear the pressured speech through the post -- Let's get through orientation and your first major course first -- I've seen people with fantastic GPAs/MCAT scores walk out after the first hour of biochem which was a "cursory review of medically significant General and Organic chemistry". No, I'm not kidding -- she flunked lunch and never came back.

2) Let's get you through first year at a reasonable level -- Again, I've seen fantastic GPA/MCAT score types flunk out when they actually have to know something, not just pick the best answer out of 5 given. Yes, we lost a few during our first lab related class as they couldn't tell the difference between a vein and nerve in a dissected specimen. No, I am not kidding. Also, this is the year for normal physiology of fun systems like Cardiopulmonary (everyone has some idea about these but the equations in pulmonary can be a bit taxing, especially if you have an instructor that's a cousin to John Boehner in that he tears up during most of the lectures), Renal ( every had a physiology researcher try to make something clinically relevant with a wooden personality?) -- but at least you can understand the concept of a coffee filter and have some idea of what the hell is going on, and finally --- Neuro where you have no freaking idea or frame of reference -- we had a course director who couldn't pronounce "bruits" even when we tried to coach him, physiology types who refused to be available the weekend before a major exam, a foreign professor who really, really loved the sodium/potassium ATPase pumps and a trailer-trash type psychologist who tried to teach midbrain functions -- holding it all together was the professor emeritus who tried to teach spinal tracts of medical significance and really loved his craft but there were only so many of him to go around -- curve was hellacious....you get the idea. At the end of the year is intro to path which claimed a few more from my class --

3) let's get you through 2nd year after the abuse of first --- this is where the things get nasty -- You get to learn path, medicine, pharm and clinical stuff all at once -- welcome to the saying, "if you're getting more than 4 hours of sleep a night, you're doing it wrong"....

Let's get through that successfully, and then see how well you need to do on boards to get into a residency, much less a competitive one ----
Little dramatic no? 1st year is tough but I had no experience where anyone ran off because things were to hard. Some people failed, some remediated etc. Second year was difficult because of boards looming, at this point you should know how to study for class...if not then God he'll you.


No good reason to not be sleeping well every night. If you are pulling 16 hour study days you are doing it wrong.
 
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Have a solid schedule set up and take advice from oms-2 at your school. They will give you insight on how to study for each class and hopefully calm your anxiety. You got accepted be happy
 
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No, not dramatic. Just life at TCOM during the Dubin-Putthoff-Oglesby Era when we were 1.5 standard deviations above every other osteopathic school on our Comlex 1 scores. At the time, the neuro course director had just retired and we had the new guy, Putthoff has very high standards to this day and it required some real effort. The OP hasn't even started and they're already eyeballing "super competitive" residencies. Just pointing out the fact that med school is a wakeup calk/reality check for people including some who thought they had it stacked in one bag....
 
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No, not dramatic. Just life at TCOM during the Dubin-Putthoff-Oglesby Era when we were 1.5 standard deviations above every other osteopathic school on our Comlex 1 scores. At the time, the neuro course director had just retired and we had the new guy, Putthoff has very high standards to this day and it required some real effort. The OP hasn't even started and they're already eyeballing "super competitive" residencies. Just pointing out the fact that med school is a wakeup calk/reality check for people including some who thought they had it stacked in one bag....

@Awesome Sauceome @mamit1001 - welp, we are in for some fun since Dubin is now at KCU. D:
 
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So, couple of things:

1) I think you're getting the cart way, way before the horse -- settle down a bit -- I can hear the pressured speech through the post -- Let's get through orientation and your first major course first -- I've seen people with fantastic GPAs/MCAT scores walk out after the first hour of biochem which was a "cursory review of medically significant General and Organic chemistry". No, I'm not kidding -- she flunked lunch and never came back.

2) Let's get you through first year at a reasonable level -- Again, I've seen fantastic GPA/MCAT score types flunk out when they actually have to know something, not just pick the best answer out of 5 given. Yes, we lost a few during our first lab related class as they couldn't tell the difference between a vein and nerve in a dissected specimen. No, I am not kidding. Also, this is the year for normal physiology of fun systems like Cardiopulmonary (everyone has some idea about these but the equations in pulmonary can be a bit taxing, especially if you have an instructor that's a cousin to John Boehner in that he tears up during most of the lectures), Renal ( every had a physiology researcher try to make something clinically relevant with a wooden personality?) -- but at least you can understand the concept of a coffee filter and have some idea of what the hell is going on, and finally --- Neuro where you have no freaking idea or frame of reference -- we had a course director who couldn't pronounce "bruits" even when we tried to coach him, physiology types who refused to be available the weekend before a major exam, a foreign professor who really, really loved the sodium/potassium ATPase pumps and a trailer-trash type psychologist who tried to teach midbrain functions -- holding it all together was the professor emeritus who tried to teach spinal tracts of medical significance and really loved his craft but there were only so many of him to go around -- curve was hellacious....you get the idea. At the end of the year is intro to path which claimed a few more from my class --

3) let's get you through 2nd year after the abuse of first --- this is where the things get nasty -- You get to learn path, medicine, pharm and clinical stuff all at once -- welcome to the saying, "if you're getting more than 4 hours of sleep a night, you're doing it wrong"....

Let's get through that successfully, and then see how well you need to do on boards to get into a residency, much less a competitive one ----

JustPlainBill, always a favorite, keep on keeping in real. So glad I did not go to TCOM. Sounds horrible. BTW, I set flame to my Dubin EKG book, just hated everything about that damn thing.
 
JustPlainBill, always a favorite, keep on keeping in real. So glad I did not go to TCOM. Sounds horrible. BTW, I set flame to my Dubin EKG book, just hated everything about that damn thing.

Different Dubin... I believe the Dubin from the EKG book was accused of pedophilia or something like that.
 
TCOM Dubin is really a pretty nice guy with high standards and expectations. He brooks no BS and wants the best for his students. He works really hard to get you ready for residency and practice.
 
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No, not dramatic. Just life at TCOM during the Dubin-Putthoff-Oglesby Era when we were 1.5 standard deviations above every other osteopathic school on our Comlex 1 scores. At the time, the neuro course director had just retired and we had the new guy, Putthoff has very high standards to this day and it required some real effort. The OP hasn't even started and they're already eyeballing "super competitive" residencies. Just pointing out the fact that med school is a wakeup calk/reality check for people including some who thought they had it stacked in one bag....

Dr. Putthoff is going to be teaching the next block at our school. FML.

This should be fun.
 
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Different Dubin... I believe the Dubin from the EKG book was accused of pedophilia or something like that.
Yea I don't think Dale Dubin is near anything in medicine. He's a pedo and his book is for idiots.
 
From 1973 to 1986, Dubin practiced plastic surgery in Tampa, Florida.[7][8] He did not suffer a single malpractice claim during this period, and built a million-dollar complex to house his practice.[7]

Dubin, then age 46, was arrested in 1986 and pled guilty to charges related to child pornography and cocaine.[9][10][11] He was sentenced to 5 years in prison[11] and his Florida medical license was revoked.[8][4] After his release in 1989, he continued to update his textbooks, and also operates a number of medical education websites.

Learn something new every day.
 
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Dr. Putthoff is going to be teaching the next block at our school. FML.

This should be fun.

As someone who had Puthoff last semester just be prepared to read Robbins... He doesn't really teach much but just summarizes Robbins and expects you to read the whole text...
 
Do not screw around in a class that Putthoff is teaching. He's a former SF shooter with the Mike force out of Nha Trang fwiw. He's got a dry sense of humor, has one standard and you either meet it or TS.

Pay attention to the Putthoff method of studying...it works quite well...do your own "outline" as he puts it....he means notes not classical outline. Pay attention to detail. He has been known to write questions on the * items in the small print beneath a figure in Robbins. He will give you the salient points he wants you to KNOW for each disease ... be able to reason your way through a third order question for each of those points for each disease.

He loves to make you stand when answering questions. Get used to it...he's really trying to get you ready for your career as a physician.

It's not as bad as it sounds but it does take some getting used to....
 
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Do not screw around in a class that Putthoff is teaching. He's a former SF shooter with the Mike force out of Nha Trang fwiw. He's got a dry sense of humor, has one standard and you either meet it or TS.

Pay attention to the Putthoff method of studying...it works quite well...do your own "outline" as he puts it....he means notes not classical outline. Pay attention to detail. He has been known to write questions on the * items in the small print beneath a figure in Robbins. He will give you the salient points he wants you to KNOW for each disease ... be able to reason your way through a third order question for each of those points for each disease.

He loves to make you stand when answering questions. Get used to it...he's really trying to get you ready for your career as a physician.

It's not as bad as it sounds but it does take some getting used to....
He Sounds like a majority of my undergrad professors, pay attention to detail or get a a Mediocre grade
 
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