most important things for residency match

Make sure it's in color...Program directors looooove color.

anbuitachi said:

so now that i'm starting school soon, what are the areas I should be focusing on to get a good match in a competitive field?
I assume the most important are the Step 1, 2 scores, but how important are lets say, clubs, EC activities, volunteering? To get into medical school, I felt they were extremely important, is it so for residency?

Click to expand...

• First Aid for the Match
• Iserson's
• The Successful Match
• Charting Outcomes - NRMP
• PD survey - NRMP
• Data and Reports - NRMP

Who you know > what you know (step 1/aoa).

A strong ability to sell yourself once you get to the interview. Board scores and grades are important for the screening. But making the program directors and faculty believe you will contribute to the program and residents want to hang out with you at 2am is just as clutch.

anbuitachi said:

so now that i'm starting school soon, what are the areas I should be focusing on to get a good match in a competitive field?
I assume the most important are the Step 1, 2 scores, but how important are lets say, clubs, EC activities, volunteering? To get into medical school, I felt they were extremely important, is it so for residency?

Click to expand...

<Pretend Oprah is doing one of her YEEEEAAAHHHH ELLLLS>
"Its called a SEEEAAAAARRRRRRRCH FUUNNNN-CCTTIIIOOOONNNN!"

Stuff you put on paper to get you an INTERVIEW
- Step 1 Score
- AOA / Class Rank
- Research in the Field you want to go into > Any Research
- Letters of Rec
- Aways (Aka Auditions) for competitive specialties OR Statement for non-competitive ones

Stuff you'll have to get you an INTERVIEW:
-Pedigree (Being from Harvard > Being from BU)
-Connections (whether its your PD to another PD, or your dad is the PD)

Stuff that will win you a residency SPOT
- Being competent in an interview
- Be able to discuss current events and changes in healthcare
- Typical interview skills
- Stuff on paper gets you the interview, being awesome gets you the job

1) Bust
2) Size

I kid. I agree with Dong.

anbuitachi said:

so now that i'm starting school soon, what are the areas I should be focusing on to get a good match in a competitive field?
I assume the most important are the Step 1, 2 scores, but how important are lets say, clubs, EC activities, volunteering? To get into medical school, I felt they were extremely important, is it so for residency?

Click to expand...

It's not the same at all. For residency, ECs, clubs, volunteering are of minimal to no value, except to the extent that they allow for specialty networking (connections are of huge value). Step 2 is also of minimal value -- a lot of the competitive fields don't even care if you have a score back before the match. What matters are step 1, evals, connections/networking/LORs/audition rotations, and good interviewing skills. For a number of the competitive fields, research is big as well. PDs periodically do a survey as to what is important, which you can find at various places on this site.

However when "starting school", none of these things matters much. Your job is to (1) do well in your courses to give yourself a good foundation for Step 1, (2) learn how to study effectively in med school -- IMHO the real point of the first half of first year, and (3) gain exposure to choose a specialty. You don't show up to med school worried about "a good match in a competitive field". For all you know you will fall in love with a non-competitive field. So you basically need to do enough to keep doors open for yourself, but not go crazy heading in a direction you won't want to go..

Objective Evaluation

1. Step 1 score - by far the most important because it's the only basis of comparison across ALL medical schools

2. Clinical year grades (clerkships). For some of the more competitive specialties like dermatology and plastics, they care about AOA status. Pretty much every other specialty it has less importance than those two.

3. LORs. Having a letter from someone big in the field is REALLY important. I put this in objective because it's an absolute requirement for pretty much every field and even more so if you want to match somewhere very competitive.

4. Research. This differs by field; having lots of research will help you more in Orthopedics or Ophthalmology than it will in a field like Peds, Medicine, or even Anesthesia (half of the people in our 4th year class didn't do it for Anesthesia and still matched). Any kind of research will help you no matter what you want to go into. For example research in ortho will still look good helping you get an ophtho residency but obviously within their own field the research looks a lot more favorable. Also for the "less competitive" residencies, research is very good for matching at some of the top places (e.g. CHOP for peds, hopkins or columbia for medicine, etc). Being published is also very helpful but it also looks to have a few abstracts yet not published.

5. Preclinical grades - I've heard some surgery directors say that this is important to them, but gen surgery is hardly a very competitive field anyway. Having a good step 1 score will make up for a relatively weak set of preclinical grades.

Subjective

- Your third year clerkship evaluations and your MSPE (Dean's letter). All the comments that your third year clerkships give will turn up on this letter and the better they are, the better a clinician you look. This holds a LOT of weight.

- Interviewing skills. This often clinches the deal and can turn a relatively weaker candidate into a much much stronger candidate. If you got 260 on your step 1 and AOA but interview like a sociopath you are not going to do well (and yes these people do exist).

- Away rotations. This can make or break where you want to match. Doing one at an institution where you might want to go greatly improves your chances of getting into that place. Alternatively though if you don't work your hardest or do your best you can actually HURT your chances. What many don't realize about residency is that a huge part of it is how you interact with other people and how you work on a team (whether it's with other doctors, nurses, or residents) so that plays one of the biggest deciding factors for where you get to go.

Also as LD said, KNOWING PEOPLE is very important. Getting to know your clerkship director who might be well renowned in her field or can write a fantastic letter is a very big deal.