Words of hope from those seeking a residency.

[tungsten87]

I think we're agreeing & saying the same thing. Grades and percentiles help you judge within a particular class but don't provide strong external validity. It's hard to compare a 3.5 or even top 10% at a school known to be competitive vs. a 3.5 or top 10% at a less competitive school. We don't really have a pre-residency standardized test, similar to USMLE.

I do wish this were the case. There needs to be some sort of standard to compare applicants, especially with how varied the curriculum is between pharmacy schools.

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[powertoold]

That is why you don't waste your time interviewing someone from a diploma mill.

Dang yo, that's harsh!

 

[spacecowgirl]

That's the thing that has always bugged me about residency applications, because more than anything else, its out of the applicants hands (even once you look past the fact that all schools do not have equal rotation sites).

Doesn't your school have standards on X weeks in acute care, X in LTC, X in retail, etc? Of course you get a few clunkers in there. It's inevitable. Things have probably changed even since I graduated, but I was able to swap rotations and got mostly what I wanted (like I said, a few clunkers). Everyone should come out of PD4 with a variety of experiences. Are you stuck with what the Magic 8 Ball picks for you?

But it's just one among many things I think makes a good candidate.

I'll get back to me DI paper.

Luck o' the Irish to you on that

 

[powertoold]

Doesn't your school have standards on X weeks in acute care, X in LTC, X in retail, etc? Of course you get a few clunkers in there. It's inevitable. Things have probably changed even since I graduated, but I was able to swap rotations and got mostly what I wanted (like I said, a few clunkers). Everyone should come out of PD4 with a variety of experiences. Are you stuck with what the Magic 8 Ball picks for you?

But it's just one among many things I think makes a good candidate.


Luck o' the Irish to you on that

Ya, but acute care at one site / school can be totally different in terms of educational value than at another.

 

[spacecowgirl]

Ya, but acute care at one site / school can be totally different in terms of educational value than at another.

Of course! Honestly, how do you (general, not you in particular, powertool) think pharmacy students can have standardization across the board? We can sit and talk about this exception and that exception all day long. But if you're applying to a site across the country, how are they going to know "XX school only gives Bs and Cs. YY school has a really terrible acute care rotation"

I am not sure what you guys want. If there were a standardized test, people would complain about their school not adequately preparing them for certain aspects of it. Or you could argue that a school teaches students to pass that test and fails to make them a good pharmacist in myriad other ways.

 

[tungsten87]

Of course! Honestly, how do you (general, not you in particular, powertool) think pharmacy students can have standardization across the board? We can sit and talk about this exception and that exception all day long. But if you're applying to a site across the country, how are they going to know "XX school only gives Bs and Cs. YY school has a really terrible acute care rotation"

I am not sure what you guys want. If there were a standardized test, people would complain about their school not adequately preparing them for certain aspects of it. Or you could argue that a school teaches students to pass that test and fails to make them a good pharmacist in myriad other ways.

you could also say this for comlex/USMLE but in reality the burden falls on the student, as it should, to prepare for these standardized tests. In med school (and correct me if i'm wrong) it's not like the school's curriculum is DIRECTLY preparing them for usmle but the students must take time on the side to study usmle study guides to get ready for the exam. the fact that students could/would complain about this is irrelevant in my opinion because the good students will always find a way to succeed, which is the point in devising these standardized tests in the first place.

 

[Quiksilver]

you could also say this for comlex/USMLE but in reality the burden falls on the student, as it should, to prepare for these standardized tests. In med school (and correct me if i'm wrong) it's not like the school's curriculum is DIRECTLY preparing them for usmle but the students must take time on the side to study usmle study guides to get ready for the exam. the fact that students could/would complain about this is irrelevant in my opinion because the good students will always find a way to succeed, which is the point in devising these standardized tests in the first place.

Agreed. I'm all for the boards results actually meaning something more then a license. Let it help compare student A to student B. Enough talk about my 2.0 being good enough to be in a residency, show it on a standardized test

 

[All4MyDaughter]

Doesn't your school have standards on X weeks in acute care, X in LTC, X in retail, etc? Of course you get a few clunkers in there. It's inevitable. Things have probably changed even since I graduated, but I was able to swap rotations and got mostly what I wanted (like I said, a few clunkers). Everyone should come out of PD4 with a variety of experiences. Are you stuck with what the Magic 8 Ball picks for you?

Our school requires:

5 weeks (1 rotation) Advanced Community
5 weeks Advanced Hospital
5 weeks Ambulatory Care (choice of area)
5 weeks Acute Care (choice of area)
5 weeks of another rotation from the above list OR Advanced Clinical Community OR MTM
10 weeks (2 rotations) of Electives

8 total rotations. It's entirely possible that you could get stuck with a retail chain for both electives, but I don't know how likely that is. Some people signed up for that... we were not allowed to switch after the selections were made.

 

[Marcus X]

you could also say this for comlex/USMLE but in reality the burden falls on the student, as it should, to prepare for these standardized tests. In med school (and correct me if i'm wrong) it's not like the school's curriculum is DIRECTLY preparing them for usmle but the students must take time on the side to study usmle study guides to get ready for the exam. the fact that students could/would complain about this is irrelevant in my opinion because the good students will always find a way to succeed, which is the point in devising these standardized tests in the first place.

I think it's definitely up to the students to prepare for the material on the Step 1 but there are still things to complain about. I had friends who went to UCSD Med, and they have less than three weeks between their second-year finals and the Step 1, whereas my friend who went to Standford Med had a different experience. They finished all the their second year classes extra early so that every student had at least six weeks free to study.