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[Corali]

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[Dral]

In terms of getting interviews, I don't think you'll have any problems. Posting in the Peds subforum below may get you more specific information on number and caliber of programs to which you should apply.

 

[GoSpursGo]

On it's face, you're a highly competitive applicant coming from a T10 and a 250+. Having ANY research experience in peds is a plus. You likely could apply to all of the "name brand" programs (BCH, CHOP, TCH, CHLA, Cinci, others depending on who you talk to) and get a reasonable return on interview invites. Beyond that I would target all "good" academic programs in regions that you want to live in. If you make a list of 10 name brand places you're most interested in, and then 10-15 regionally targeted programs in that next tier, you're likely going to be more than fine.

One caveat is that the specifics of this negative comment potentially matter. It sounds like it's a nothingburger, but it's possible it's worse than you're aware of. " @Corali was a little slow to figure out the basics of research and how to juggle time while on clinical rotations, but once they got into the swing of things they were a great member of the team" would be very different from " @Corali didn't know what they were doing and fabricated data to have something to present, but after discussing this professionalism issue they grew from the experience." Hard to say without knowing specifics, which you understandably probably won't provide. But question--I would not expect a comment on your research to wind up on your MSPE, so why is this even anywhere in your app? If this is in a LOR, I would strongly consider not using that LOR. Just because you did research doesn't mean you have to use an LOR from your PI if it isn't glowing.

 

[gyngyn]

My only application "red flag" is a somewhat negative comment regarding a part of my research work which I believe I will be able to talk about in a positive light (ie. how I successfully learned and grew from the experience, which was also mentioned within the negative comment itself).

Was this a comment in your grade for a course? In other words, is this going to be included in your MSPE?
There were 3,067 peds positions offered in the Match last year. Only 91 did not fill.

 

[operaman]

Yeah agree context is critical here. And I’m still stumped how a negative comment about research can end up in your application. It simply doesn’t belong in clinical evals, and it would only make it to the MSPE if it were a professionalism issue.

I would just add that there’s little cost to a few extra eras apps. What I did back in the day was apply to all the top programs I was interested in, and then any tolerable program within driving distance. Much easier to send out a few more apps than to be stuck with only a few interviews when it’s too late to apply to more. You can always decline the additional interviews later and other waitlisted applicants will be happy to take them off your hands.

 

[mvenus929]

Agree with GoSpursGo. You're plenty competitive for 'top' children's hospitals, as long as that comment is as trivial as you think it is (and on your application).

I will also throw out that depending on your current peds environment, I encourage you to explore a variety of practice settings and program sizes. Yes, CHOP and TCH are great programs--but you'll also very likely get lost in the sea of trainees there. If you're interested in a fellowship, a big name program might help you if you use connections well (and if you've published as a med student, I have no doubt you would). But so could a smaller program where you can actually get 1:1 interactions with the attendings rather than be below a fellow as a buffer. If you want to be a general pediatrician in the community, training in a stand alone, tertiary care center may make the transition to gen peds practice hard because you won't get excellent training in the things you'll use every day.

Basically, for peds, there are a lot of practice environments and great programs and not all of that is reflected in the US News rankings.

 

[jhmmd]

I'm trying to figure out how many peds programs I need to apply to/what would be considered "safeties" and "reaches" for me. I attend a T10 medical school, preclinical and clerkship years P/F (but with good comments on my peds eval), honors'd my pediatrics sub-internship and high pass'd an IM sub-internship (was originally thinking Med/Peds, now applying straight categorical peds). My step 2 score is in the low 250s. I think I have decent LORs, nothing crazy special in any of them though, and decent research (1 first-author paper submitted for publication, 2 poster presentations) and leadership and advocacy positions. My only application "red flag" is a somewhat negative comment regarding a part of my research work which I believe I will be able to talk about in a positive light (ie. how I successfully learned and grew from the experience, which was also mentioned within the negative comment itself).

I am mostly interested in larger academic programs with a wide diversity of cases so I was thinking of limiting my apps to programs ranked within the top 50 or so, is this reasonable or should I be applying to more safeties? I don't know how much weight I should place on my one negative comment and would love some perspective from others on this!!

What do you mean "a negative comment regarding a part of my 'research'?"

 

[SurfingDoctor]

Dude/dudette… it’s peds. You wanna take care of kids… you can take care of kids, realizing that a vast majority of students or doctors (or society in general) don’t care about them at all.

If it’s your passion, go for it. You got this.