Med school to residency process?

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Robizzle

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Hi guys, this is my first thread on the allo forum!

I figure I'd start off by asking: What needs to be done during med school?. We all know what was required to get from undergrad to med school. Everyone had a different background, but for the most part, we know we needed the following:

1) GPA
2) MCAT
3) Clinical Experience
4) Community Service - helps
5) Research - helps

and ofcourse plus and minus a few things based on your own background.

My question is, what's the deal for residencies? Everyone I talk to says "if you want a competitive specialty, you're gonna need to do research between first and second year."

Well okay, that's doable.. And??

Besides a good Step I score and ofcourse passing and hopefully honors'ing all your classes, what else?

Do med students still do hospital volunteering, shadowing, club leadership, etc. etc.?

Is it basically the same as undergrad except MCAT = USMLE?

Thanks, and it's an honor to join you all.

(And I hope the first response isn't : This answer can easily be found using a search, lol)

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Hi guys, this is my first thread on the allo forum!

I figure I'd start off by asking: What needs to be done during med school?. We all know what was required to get from undergrad to med school. Everyone had a different background, but for the most part, we know we needed the following:

1) GPA
2) MCAT
3) Clinical Experience
4) Community Service - helps
5) Research - helps

and ofcourse plus and minus a few things based on your own background.

My question is, what's the deal for residencies? Everyone I talk to says "if you want a competitive specialty, you're gonna need to do research between first and second year."

Well okay, that's doable.. And??

Besides a good Step I score and ofcourse passing and hopefully honors'ing all your classes, what else?

Do med students still do hospital volunteering, shadowing, club leadership, etc. etc.?

Is it basically the same as undergrad except MCAT = USMLE?

Thanks, and it's an honor to join you all.

(And I hope the first response isn't : This answer can easily be found using a search, lol)


As far as I understand it, the most important things are your USMLE scores, and your grades and letters from your clinical rotations in 3rd and 4th years. Research and AOA (an honors society) are important but not essential for the most competitive residencies, so for AOA you would have to worry about your pre-clinical grades too. As far as extracurriculars, I think the most important thing is to show leadership as it is a key trait for residency. I still haven't figured out what I'm doing about research so I can't answer when the best time is to do it, I know alot of people do it over the summer but I have some traveling plans so I'm looking for another option currently. The best bet to learn about all this is to buy the latest version of Iserson's Getting Into A Residency and skim through it. I had always wished that I entered undergrad fully understanding what I needed to do to get into medschool so I read this before medschool and it gave me a good idea of whats important in this new game.
 
and ofcourse plus and minus a few things based on your own background.

Like a being a mid to upper class, protestant white guy . . . :D

Get like a 280 on step one, get honors in all your classes, first author on research that makes it into JAMA or NEJM, volunteer at the homseless shelter every night, at the free clinic on afternoons off, student representive to the school and to AMSA, class president, and president of your particular interest group, never leave the hospital on clinicals, and generally never sleep, and yeah . . . you'll be cool . . . no worries
 
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Hi guys, this is my first thread on the allo forum!

My question is, what's the deal for residencies? Everyone I talk to says "if you want a competitive specialty, you're gonna need to do research between first and second year."

Not really. If you spend ten weeks transfecting expression vectors into E. coli, it's not going to impress any orthopedic surgeons. If you can get a publication out of a summer project for an M1, then it's either a bad publication or you're going to be author number twelve and have forgotten what the work was about well enough to defend it upon interview two years later.

General consensus--spend your first two years preparing for step 1. If you think you're ready for it, study more. Have time for research? You didn't study enough then. You can always add research later, but you only get one shot at step 1 (assuming you pass).

Besides a good Step I score and ofcourse passing and hopefully honors'ing all your classes, what else?

Do med students still do hospital volunteering, shadowing, club leadership, etc. etc.?

Is it basically the same as undergrad except MCAT = USMLE?

(And I hope the first response isn't : This answer can easily be found using a search, lol)

This answer can easily be found using a search. :laugh:

Honestly, your grades in medical school won't mean much if you are applying to PGY's that take students from a variety of schools. They won't know what your grades mean anyway. Class rank is useful for AOA candidacy, but beyond that, just prepare for your USMLE your first two years.

Step 1 is actually more important for competative residencies than the MCAT was for med school because GPA actually did have some weight.

As for volunteering, we have opportunities at my school, but our students do them because they want to. I don't think that anybody is putting it on their c.v.

If you want to do research, do it in a clinical specialty that you are considering during M3. You may participate in a basic science project between M1 and M2, but just do it for the stipend. The best you'd get out of it is a poster.
 
Thanks guys, that's exactly the info I was looking for. So I think I get it, STEP I, STEP I, and more STEP I :D .
 
I think the things other people have mentioned (third year grades, USMLE step 1 score, AOA) are all important, but as far as research goes my impression is that it's not so critical to do research between your first and second years as it is to get published for competitive residencies--something you're probably not going to accomplish in a couple months, although you could get the ball rolling. I've heard a couple residency directors from the more competitive specialties (ortho, ENT) say that they only really care about published research (meaning first or second author) that an applicant has done, so doing a summer of research just for the sake of doing it probably won't make a big impression for some fields. I traveled during my summer off and I wouldn't change a thing, but then again I've already pretty much ruled out any residency that requires me to do research (not my thing).
 
Not really. If you spend ten weeks transfecting expression vectors into E. coli, it's not going to impress any orthopedic surgeons. If you can get a publication out of a summer project for an M1, then it's either a bad publication or you're going to be author number twelve and have forgotten what the work was about well enough to defend it upon interview two years later.

General consensus--spend your first two years preparing for step 1. If you think you're ready for it, study more. Have time for research? You didn't study enough then. You can always add research later, but you only get one shot at step 1 (assuming you pass).

Honestly, your grades in medical school won't mean much if you are applying to PGY's that take students from a variety of schools. They won't know what your grades mean anyway. Class rank is useful for AOA candidacy, but beyond that, just prepare for your USMLE your first two years.

Step 1 is actually more important for competative residencies than the MCAT was for med school because GPA actually did have some weight.

As for volunteering, we have opportunities at my school, but our students do them because they want to. I don't think that anybody is putting it on their c.v.

If you want to do research, do it in a clinical specialty that you are considering during M3. You may participate in a basic science project between M1 and M2, but just do it for the stipend. The best you'd get out of it is a poster.


Look, I'm not claiming to be an expert, but I have some disagreements with the previous posts. Here's my thinking:

1) Step 1 - yeah, clearly the most important. It doesn't get you the residency, but it gets you in the door. Without it, you're toast.

2) Research - pretty much obligatory for the competitive specialties. Even if you don't publish, if you want a competitive specialty, you have to have done it. Look, all I know is ortho, but the last stats say that >90% of successful Ortho applicants did research, and >60% published while med students.

3) Grades - nobody cares about grades, unless it gets you AOA. If you get AOA, you are gold. Get AOA. Kill people to get AOA.

4) Volunteering - it's all brownie points. It'll get make your letters of rec look pretty, maybe buy you some med school awards, and help you network.

5) Shadowing - f*ck that, that's your entire med school career

6) Letters - it's not just what they say, it's who writes them. Get a prestigious person from your field to write one, and it's like a train ticket to where ever you want to go. Cultivate your contacts (and that often means doing research, or doing volunteer stuff they run) and get them.

Yeah, go buy Iversons. You're going to get a huge range of opinions from students, probably based on their own personal opinions and chosen specialties. The truth is that these things all have variable importance depending on your chosen specialty. You want Ortho/Uro/Derm? Get ready to do everything you can, and maybe you can sleep when you're in your 50's. You want IM/FP? Don't worry so much.
 
Not really. If you spend ten weeks transfecting expression vectors into E. coli, it's not going to impress any orthopedic surgeons. If you can get a publication out of a summer project for an M1, then it's either a bad publication or you're going to be author number twelve and have forgotten what the work was about well enough to defend it upon interview two years later.

General consensus--spend your first two years preparing for step 1. If you think you're ready for it, study more. Have time for research? You didn't study enough then. You can always add research later, but you only get one shot at step 1 (assuming you pass).

Hmm, I've heard different... program directors at top 5 programs, and my mother (who happens to be a PD) have all told me that research during the basic science years, no matter what field, shows that the candidate has the potential to produce and contribute to research, which is very important at academic residency programs... so much so that they'd rather take a candidate with a USMLE score of 230+publications, than a 240 with nothing else. However, the research should be somewhat close to one's future plans... for example, if one's interested in neurosurgery, it's perfectly acceptable to do research in ANY surgical subspecialty.
 
Hi -- you're quite right in noticing that there's a lot less of a formula for success as their was in pre-med. This is mostly because people are starting to differentiate into different things (surgeons vs medical vs non-patient contact; adult vs pediatric; competitive specialty vs we take anyone with a pulse, respirations optional)

In line with a couple of the previous posts, some stuff matters regardless of where you're going -- board scores, AOA, grades (clerkships > preclinical), LORs. As far as the formula, weight, and "extras" required, my impression is it depends on the exact field. At my school, people applying for neurosurgery almost all do a year out; most of them start attending grand rounds the second they think they might be interested; they make sure pretty much everyone in the department knows who they are by the time they apply, and they usually start pretty early. The ENT people, on the other hand, usually have a less well laid out plan, but certainly don't all do a year out. Plastics folks all do a year out. A lot of that is due to the personalities (our neurosurgery chair vs. the ENT chair) giving the advice, but my guess is it also reflects the attitude of the fields.

I knew what I wanted to do on arrival at med school and now, having finished my clerkships, haven't changed my mind. So I've got a bunch of research reflected by some decent publications (went to work for a very productive lab run by a slave driver, so I got good work done even though I just wanted to go to bed post call). The people I worked for introduced me around, and I started scrubbing in one day a week as a preclinical student and now scrub in after I'm done with whatever rotation I'm on or on the weekends (luckly, I'm interested in a field with a good number of emergency/late night/weekend cases). Sometimes I try to go to conference, although I'd rather be scrubbed in than at converence. I do all of that mainly because I like doing it (general surgery just ain't that competative), and I get a lot out of it.

The point is, what you'll do when you get to med school (or now if you're already there) is read Iserson's, then make an appointment with the PD of the department you're interested in, reading something like "Dear Dr. X, I'm a first year medical student here at the University of Brilliant People and am interested in pursuing orthopaedic neurosurgical radiographic dermatology. Would you have some time to meet with me to discuss anything I can do now to gain more exposure to the field?" They usually have a very fixed plan for what you do for that field -- whether they feel a year out is required, what conferences you should attend, etc.

As far as doing research between years one and two, a lot of the benefit is getting yourself known to people in your department of interest. In smaller fields (neurosurgery, derm) this is quite important. If you want to go into internal medicine, probably not so much (although it still helps).

Best,
Anka
 
According to Rules of the Road (a book for getting into residency in emergency medicine), program directors rank the following items in importance of what they look for:

1. EM rotation grade
2. Interview
3. Clinical grades
4. Other
5. Recommendations
6. Grades (overall)
7. Elective at PD's institution
8. Boards (overall)
9. USMLE II
10. Interest expressed
11. USMLE I
12. Awards/achievements
13. AOA
14. Medical School attended
15. Extracurricular activities
16. Basic science grades
17. Publications
18. Personal statement
 
According to Rules of the Road (a book for getting into residency in emergency medicine), program directors rank the following items in importance of what they look for:

1. EM rotation grade
2. Interview
3. Clinical grades
4. Other
5. Recommendations
6. Grades (overall)
7. Elective at PD’s institution
8. Boards (overall)
9. USMLE II
10. Interest expressed
11. USMLE I
12. Awards/achievements
13. AOA
14. Medical School attended
15. Extracurricular activities
16. Basic science grades
17. Publications
18. Personal statement

That's for EM though. Granted EM is considered competitive, I'd say it changes pretty significantly going to a more competitive specialty (ie. Derm, opthal, ENT).
 
Hi -- you're quite right in noticing that there's a lot less of a formula for success as their was in pre-med. This is mostly because people are starting to differentiate into different things (surgeons vs medical vs non-patient contact; adult vs pediatric; competitive specialty vs we take anyone with a pulse, respirations optional)

In line with a couple of the previous posts, some stuff matters regardless of where you're going -- board scores, AOA, grades (clerkships > preclinical), LORs. As far as the formula, weight, and "extras" required, my impression is it depends on the exact field. At my school, people applying for neurosurgery almost all do a year out; most of them start attending grand rounds the second they think they might be interested; they make sure pretty much everyone in the department knows who they are by the time they apply, and they usually start pretty early. The ENT people, on the other hand, usually have a less well laid out plan, but certainly don't all do a year out. Plastics folks all do a year out. A lot of that is due to the personalities (our neurosurgery chair vs. the ENT chair) giving the advice, but my guess is it also reflects the attitude of the fields.

I knew what I wanted to do on arrival at med school and now, having finished my clerkships, haven't changed my mind. So I've got a bunch of research reflected by some decent publications (went to work for a very productive lab run by a slave driver, so I got good work done even though I just wanted to go to bed post call). The people I worked for introduced me around, and I started scrubbing in one day a week as a preclinical student and now scrub in after I'm done with whatever rotation I'm on or on the weekends (luckly, I'm interested in a field with a good number of emergency/late night/weekend cases). Sometimes I try to go to conference, although I'd rather be scrubbed in than at converence. I do all of that mainly because I like doing it (general surgery just ain't that competative), and I get a lot out of it.

The point is, what you'll do when you get to med school (or now if you're already there) is read Iserson's, then make an appointment with the PD of the department you're interested in, reading something like "Dear Dr. X, I'm a first year medical student here at the University of Brilliant People and am interested in pursuing orthopaedic neurosurgical radiographic dermatology. Would you have some time to meet with me to discuss anything I can do now to gain more exposure to the field?" They usually have a very fixed plan for what you do for that field -- whether they feel a year out is required, what conferences you should attend, etc.

As far as doing research between years one and two, a lot of the benefit is getting yourself known to people in your department of interest. In smaller fields (neurosurgery, derm) this is quite important. If you want to go into internal medicine, probably not so much (although it still helps).

Best,
Anka


Hey Anka, how does doing a year out to do research work logistically? Do you stay at your home institution? Do you pay medschool tuition or get grants like a grad student? Is between 2nd year and 3rd year or between 3rd and 4th more common? When do you start exploring this? Thanks for any input.
 
...USMLE score of 230+publications, than a 240 with nothing else. However, the research should be somewhat close to one's future plans...

I'll buy that. Two issues though--publications are rare in a summer rotation (at least at my place), and M1/2 access to good specialty research is hard to come by so early in your education (again, at my place). At my school and others I interviewed at, the research you have access to is pathology, biochem, micro, cell bio, basic cancer (with yeast or cell culture--stuff that grows to slow to get a pub over a summer). We have other programs for people going into family med, but if you had a 230 or 240, you should have no problem matching in that field.

Another thing--if you are comparing a student with a 230 to one with a 240, your LOR's and actual interview composure itself are problaby going to be the tiebreaker. If are in a competative field, you probably needed some type of research to get the interview in the first place. I could get 4 clinical cases published in a rads journal which took two weeks of work during M3 or I could rest on my three pubs from my previous career. Either way, they will ask me about what I've done during the interview. If I'm applying for rads, they are going to want to discuss the rads stuff with me even if my contribution was fifth author versus my first author stuff from undergrad/M1. That's the important part.

They're not just going to look and say, "Oh, publications! You've got potential." If they don't probe you about them, then they aren't doing a very good job of understanding where the candidate is coming from. If all I do is some bench work during M1/M2 before I'm qualified to actually choose a specialty, that's an obvious resume pad. It's what you've done in your field after you are actually exposed to medicine and were at least somewhat able to decide on what you were interested in that will impress PD's the most.

I think that it's silly that research plays such a role (and I actualy have publications). How many people who've done research to set themselves up for a competative specialty actually go into academics later on? The reason that they are competative is because you make money doing them in private practice or have a good lifestyle without stressing about publishing your stuff. Since you are being trained by academic docs, you have to pretend that what they like is what you like.
 
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According to Rules of the Road (a book for getting into residency in emergency medicine), program directors rank the following items in importance of what they look for:

9. USMLE II
10. Interest expressed
11. USMLE I

You don't have to report step II even if you took it before your interview. This rank order seems unlikely.
 
Hey Anka, how does doing a year out to do research work logistically? Do you stay at your home institution? Do you pay medschool tuition or get grants like a grad student? Is between 2nd year and 3rd year or between 3rd and 4th more common? When do you start exploring this? Thanks for any input.

It's usually between years 3 and 4 where I am, the logic being that if you take a year off before your clerkships, you might find out when you get back you can't stand the field. It also gets one of the more demanding medical school years out of the way so you can come back to some nice elective time. Start exploring it as soon as you think you're going to do it -- as early as first year you can start developing contacts, figuring out who is who (who has active research, is there a particular lab that most of the medical students going into a particular specialty go to because he's the guy to get a letter from, is there a lab that usually has med student led publications based on a year out, etc.), and finding out answers to logistical questions (like how you're enrolled, what if any tuition you pay... which probably varies school to school). If you're going to take off between third and fourth year, you'll apply for funding (there is funding available specifically for medical students doing a year out) in the winter of your third year, so by then you have to have everything pretty well firmed up, with a project idea you can write a few pages on. If you're doing something central to the lab, your PI may be able to fund you from an existing grant. If you start out thinking along these lines as a first year, you can set up your M1/M2 summer in the lab (or at least the department) you're thinking about doing research in.

Best,
Anka
 
You don't have to report step II even if you took it before your interview. This rank order seems unlikely.

It used to be that you didn't need Step II to match or even to graduate from some schools. However, as more and more schools are requiring passage of Step II for graduation, it is gaining in importance for PDs. There are a few residencies that want to see your Step II score before they rank you.

From what I've seen some PDs on the residency forums say, it is likely that most programs will start requiring Step II scores prior to ranking (maybe even interviews). So - make sure you do your homework about what programs require before you schedule your Step II too late.

And to the OP - go buy yourself a copy of Iserson's Guide to Getting into Residency. They just put a new edition out this summer. In addition to some general tips/guidelines, it gives some general info on different residencies/fellowships (years, number of spots, etc).
 
Hmm, I've heard different... program directors at top 5 programs, and my mother (who happens to be a PD) have all told me that research during the basic science years, no matter what field, shows that the candidate has the potential to produce and contribute to research, which is very important at academic residency programs..

Not really. If you spend ten weeks transfecting expression vectors into E. coli, it's not going to impress any orthopedic surgeons. If you can get a publication out of a summer project for an M1, then it's either a bad publication or you're going to be author number twelve and have forgotten what the work was about well enough to defend it upon interview two years later.

You may participate in a basic science project between M1 and M2, but just do it for the stipend. The best you'd get out of it is a poster.

So let's say I'm currently interested in Ortho. Let's say I keep an open mind in med school & this passion still exists after M1. Do you guys think it's AT ALL possible to find ortho-related research between M1 and M2? Do students do it more to just get their foot in the door and get connections, since you say this 2 month period is not so easy to get published?

If it's not possible to find this kinda research, what do most students who apply for Ortho end up doing and researching? Is basic science research really gonna cut it?

And between years 3 and 4, if I decide to take a year off, is it that much easier to find surgical-specialty related research?

Thanks again for the input.
 
So let's say I'm currently interested in Ortho. Let's say I keep an open mind in med school & this passion still exists after M1. Do you guys think it's AT ALL possible to find ortho-related research between M1 and M2? Do students do it more to just get their foot in the door and get connections, since you say this 2 month period is not so easy to get published?

If it's not possible to find this kinda research, what do most students who apply for Ortho end up doing and researching? Is basic science research really gonna cut it?

And between years 3 and 4, if I decide to take a year off, is it that much easier to find surgical-specialty related research?

Thanks again for the input.


I think it's important to understand that doing research in medical school really doesn't have to be a full time job. Unlike the bench-top research you're probably used to from undergrad, many med student projects involve chart reviews and data compilation. Frequently the med student is simply one of many people involved on the project.

In my case, I did two projects, mainly during my first and second years. I got two papers (first author on both) and five presentations out of these. Both were retrospective chart reviews, and I did it at night and on weekends. Neither were in Ortho (my field). The time investment was reasonably substantial, but was far from full-time. My classmates who did research took a similar approach.

I don't know how important it is that you do your research in the field you are interested in. My interviewers were more interested in seeing a "committment to research" than anything Ortho specific, but I'm not sure how it is out in the civilian world.

You can do research in between your classes. A lot of people do it. The only question is whether or not you're willing to give up some of your afternoons, nights, and weekends to do it. If you're not, that's okay, a lot of people feel that way. But take a close look at the numbers for the specialty you're interested in, you'll find that for the competitive fields, it is basically obligatory to have at least participated in research, if not publish.
 
Interesting idea with the chart reviews. Can you point me to a paper (doesn't have to be your own) that uses a chart review? I would like to hear how the process works and how much effort would be involved.
 
Interesting idea with the chart reviews. Can you point me to a paper (doesn't have to be your own) that uses a chart review? I would like to hear how the process works and how much effort would be involved.

Sure, will dig some stuff up tomorrow. Gotta have something to do on this painful holiday. Will get back to you soon.
 
Interesting idea with the chart reviews. Can you point me to a paper (doesn't have to be your own) that uses a chart review? I would like to hear how the process works and how much effort would be involved.
Just go here and type in "chart review." Incidentally, I did so this morning and an ortho paper was the first one.
 
Interesting idea with the chart reviews. Can you point me to a paper (doesn't have to be your own) that uses a chart review? I would like to hear how the process works and how much effort would be involved.

I'm trying to remember the name for it, but there is also something, where you go into the registry at a variety of hospitals in the area. look at certain results for whatever it is that you want to study and develop a theory based on the data you compile and the statistics that you are able to deduce from the data.

I think it's called a registry study or something...but those are similar. You aren't looking at active charts, but perhaps at a certain endpoint from patients in the system that have all had the same procedure and taking sevreal variables into account...tada. Often those large scale registry studies form the basis for doing randomized trials.


Could be a good idea in med school.:thumbup:
 
Iverson's guide to getting a residency shows different ranks by specialty.

From the talks I've heard from PD's, clincal grades within your discipline are the most important, followed by 3rd year grades, followed by Step I and Letters. (Agreed, though, that step I minimums may be required in some specialties to get the interviews). Step II is probably more important if you have it, but everyone should have Step I before applying so it carries more weight. AOA, research, and leadership (rather than simply membership or random volunteering) count as well. And, as mentioned, no one really cares about "shadowing". Your clerkships and even early electives (or early clinical skills courses) should be part of your academic record and aren't "shadowing".
 
Iverson's guide to getting a residency shows different ranks by specialty.

From the talks I've heard from PD's, clincal grades within your discipline are the most important, followed by 3rd year grades, followed by Step I and Letters. (Agreed, though, that step I minimums may be required in some specialties to get the interviews). Step II is probably more important if you have it, but everyone should have Step I before applying so it carries more weight. AOA, research, and leadership (rather than simply membership or random volunteering) count as well. And, as mentioned, no one really cares about "shadowing". Your clerkships and even early electives (or early clinical skills courses) should be part of your academic record and aren't "shadowing".

I think the purpose of shadowing is more to help you figure out what you like earlier and to make some early connections rather than to put on your CV.
 
I think it's called a registry study or something...but those are similar. You aren't looking at active charts, but perhaps at a certain endpoint from patients in the system that have all had the same procedure and taking sevreal variables into account...tada.

I've heard of cohort studies and cross-sectional studies, which are run in a similar manner to what you described.
 
I've heard of cohort studies and cross-sectional studies, which are run in a similar manner to what you described.

LOL right right...I knew I was describing something that DOES indeed exist, but could not remember the proper name :D

Glad to know I'm not completely off my rocker...well at least not for that reason :laugh:
 
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