2008 pathology applicants

[yaah]

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Just take step III as soon as you can. Get it out of the way. The amount of stuff you do and need to learn in residency increases exponentially. First year is the least busy you will be, so take it.

 

[Sean2tall]

Started my Path rotation last week and I am pretty jazzed about it. Somebody told me, "That's the first time I've heard someone say they're on Path with a huge smile on their face." Haha. Hope stuff is going great for the new 4th years!

 

[mlw03]

i too just started my main path rotation. it's nice to be around doctors who aren't depressed all the time. on the other hand, i'd finally gotten decent at clinical medicine, so it sucks to be completely clueless again.

 

[Tiki]

I start my Path rotation the end of July. Right now I'm on Radiology, and I have to say that if there wasn't a medicine year involved, I might think about switching to the dark side. I really like radiology.

 

[Aubrey]

I start my Path rotation the end of July. Right now I'm on Radiology, and I have to say that if there wasn't a medicine year involved, I might think about switching to the dark side. I really like radiology.

Oh come on, you can do a surgery intern year instead.

 

[Tiki]

Oh come on, you can do a surgery intern year instead.

Oh yes, because that sounds like barrels of fun. 😛

I haven't had a real path elective yet (only two weeks at a place with no residents) so I'm sure once I start my path elective I'll put those crazy radiology thoughts out of my head. 🙂

 

[deschutes]

on the other hand, i'd finally gotten decent at clinical medicine, so it sucks to be completely clueless again.

Nyahahahaha!

It doesn't stop, by the way.

They say you get to feeling like you know everything in Path right around the time you're 40.... and then after that begins the downhill slide into senility.

 

[CameronFrye]

Oh come on, you can do a surgery intern year instead.

Tsk, tsk, tsk. You know very well that the actual good advice is to recommend one of the really sweet transitional years that are around. For example, the transitional program at Carilion in Roanoke, VA has three required inpatient months (1 surg, 1 med, 1 peds), one required outpatient month (ambulatory med I believe), and your other 8 months can consist of electives. I've known people who worked maybe 40 hours in an entire month on some of their electives. However, there are downsides: it's very competitive and you have to spend a year in Roanoke.

 

[DarksideAllstar]

Oh come on, you can do a surgery intern year instead.

Funny that you say that. A friend of mine who is now a PGY2 in Radiology actually did a prelim surgery year. He had a pretty rough year, but overall felt that his experience was worth it because of his intention of going into IR.

 

[docbiohazard]

I'm envious of you being done with CK, mlw... I take CK next week, then spend a few days on vacation before I start my 4th year AI in Surg Path. I'm looking forward to that. I got my CV done, have to finish my personal statement draft by next week as well so I can meet with my Dean the week after next. CS is sometime in September. I haven't picked up an ERAS token yet, I'll do that when I'm back on campus...

As far as Step 3, you have to pick a state to "register" from but that state doesn't have to correlate to where you want to eventually do residency, practice medicine, live currently, or anything even remotely connected to reality. All the states to my knowledge, however, require you to have your MD/DO completed before you take Step 3. I'm planning on taking mine after I finish rotations and before I start residency, thanks to some quirks of my MD/PhD lifestyle. 🙂

BH

 

[TheCritic]

Hey all. Thought I'd introduce myself. I'm applying this year for path and have been following the path forum for a couple of years now. I already have a pretty good idea about where I'd like to and probably will be doing my residency. Any who, good luck to everyone else.

 

[mlw03]

yeah, it definately feels good to be done with step 2 CK - especially good now that i got my score and i passed. to all out there waiting, i really encourage you to take it while as fresh as possible off the clinical rotations.

 

[Tiki]

I take Step 2 Ck on the 25th and I'm stressing out!

Stupidly, I didn't take time off before the test, I've just been studying after I leave for the day from my radiology elective (which is usually around 1 pm). So I'm getting in about six hours a day, but I'm worried that I should have given myself more time. I do not want to do worse on CK than I did on Step 1.

Plus, I feel like I need to start writing my personal statement, but I have no freaking time. As soon as CK is over, I start my away electives at Penn.

I can't wait till this is over!

 

[docbiohazard]

I'm dreading writing my personal statement. I just wish I could stand on my CV, grades, dean's letter and the like, and lets talk about why I want to do Pathology in the interview. Its hard to figure out how to write it without it coming out cheesey, but I guess that's just inherent to the process.

BH

 

[b&ierstiefel]

I'm dreading writing my personal statement. I just wish I could stand on my CV, grades, dean's letter and the like, and lets talk about why I want to do Pathology in the interview. Its hard to figure out how to write it without it coming out cheesey, but I guess that's just inherent to the process.

BH

Your personal statement should be conservative. It's OK for your personal statement to be like everybody else's personal statemet.

I've seen weird stuff in personal statements like stories of "dissecting roadkill" or even things like "I broke up with my boyfriend because of pathology"...

WHO CARES?

Seriously, just be honest and don't exaggerate things. Just clearly state why you're interested in pathology. Having looked at applications in the past, I spend probably 1-2 minutes MAX reading personal statements. Sure, I look out for entertaining sentences (like aforementioned examples) so that I can go share stupid personal statements with my colleagues but other than that, the average personal statements are just fine. The personal statements, less like med school apps, are not likely to make or break your application.

 

[yaah]

It sort of has to be cheesy. It's not really bad to be generic. State your interest, your career goals (which of course can change), interest, etc, and talk about yourself and your best characteristics. Avoid making yourself out to be Gandhi just because you volunteered a couple of times. Avoid making yourself out to be the second incarnation of William Osler just because someone said you had a good attitude with patients and you worked hard and participated in a research project.

 

[docbiohazard]

Thanks for all the tips. I'll just go for run of the mill cheese and avoid anything too wacky. I have a couple of stories that I could tell related to how I decided to do Pathology, but the whole "story" format strikes me as excessively cheesy, so I might just stick with my motivation, interests, career goals, etc.

For now, though, gotta get back to the Step 2 CK studying...
BH

 

[deleted113029]

one more thing about pathology PS's. do not make it seem like it was an overnight decision and/or the only logical thing to do after hating all your 3rd year rotations. they want to see someone who has thought a decent amount of time about pathology and had SOME experience with pathology; a rotation or two in surg path or something. otherwise, your PS will smell like BS.

good luck with your PS BH.

 

[JPR22]

What has everyone's experience been of what we're expected to know for surg-path electives? Anyone have any advice?

 

[Tiki]

I don't know, I start my Penn surg path elective on Monday. I bought Wheater's, just so I'd have something to review basic histology during the elective.

 

[TheCritic]

What has everyone's experience been of what we're expected to know for surg-path electives? Anyone have any advice?

You are expected to know ALL basic histology and ALL of Robbins. If you do not then you get sent home. You are also expected to know how to gross every specimen after having observed it done only once. If you cannot pick it up this fast you are sent home. You are expected to have Ackerman's memorized by the end of the rotation.

 

[mlw03]

What has everyone's experience been of what we're expected to know for surg-path electives? Anyone have any advice?

the only things expected of me thus far have been: 1) clinical knowledge at the MS4 level 2) ability to learn a little over the course of the rotation - by that i mean now that i've seen 15 tubular adenomas they expect me to usually be able to recognize it 3) not be a pain in the butt.

that's it - they know we don't have surg path texts to read at night, so detailed morphology is simply beyond our level until we start our own residencies. i would agree that reviewing some basic histo is useful, but realize that a core prostate biopsy will look nothing like what's in a basic histo atlas because all you're getting is a tiny sliver. there's a lot of that kinda thing i'm finding.

 

[alimarie81]

Your personal statement should be conservative. It's OK for your personal statement to be like everybody else's personal statemet.

I've seen weird stuff in personal statements like stories of "dissecting roadkill" or even things like "I broke up with my boyfriend because of pathology"...

WHO CARES?

Seriously, just be honest and don't exaggerate things. Just clearly state why you're interested in pathology. Having looked at applications in the past, I spend probably 1-2 minutes MAX reading personal statements. Sure, I look out for entertaining sentences (like aforementioned examples) so that I can go share stupid personal statements with my colleagues but other than that, the average personal statements are just fine. The personal statements, less like med school apps, are not likely to make or break your application.

How long should a PS be? On the ERAS site, they allow up to 8 pages??!!! I thought it was more like a 1-2 page document. Any advice is helpful. Thanks

 

[mlw03]

How long should a PS be? On the ERAS site, they allow up to 8 pages??!!! I thought it was more like a 1-2 page document. Any advice is helpful. Thanks

i was also told 1-2 pages, which i'm assuming they mean single spaced. mine is about 1.5 pages single spaced, and i've actually been told by one of my letter writers that it's on the long side of normal.

 

[deleted113029]

How long should a PS be? On the ERAS site, they allow up to 8 pages??!!! I thought it was more like a 1-2 page document. Any advice is helpful. Thanks

mine was <1 page. programs look through at least 100-200 if not more than 300 apps/cycle. you would tune out if you had to do this year in and year out. not to mention reading something where you actually had to turn a page.

one succint page of truth/BS. that should def. suffice.

 

[Tiki]

I just finished Step 2 Ck!!! YAY! It was pretty hard. I had one really brutal block, where I wanted to poke my eyes out. Hopefully, I did at least as well as Step 1, I'd hate to drop.

Now I can work on my personal statement and ERAS before I start my aways on Monday.

 

[Tiki]

Ok, so all the Radiology thoughts are now officially gone. I'm on my path elective and I'm loving it. They are letting me gross and dictate small cases and then sign out with the attending. I'm having a blast!

 

[Neddy]

How long should a PS be? On the ERAS site, they allow up to 8 pages??!!! I thought it was more like a 1-2 page document. Any advice is helpful. Thanks

One page. Much more than that and it will not be read, and may well annoy your interviewers. I've never heard a satisfactory explanation for why ERAS gives you so much space.

 

[Sean2tall]

Ok, so all the Radiology thoughts are now officially gone. I'm on my path elective and I'm loving it. They are letting me gross and dictate small cases and then sign out with the attending. I'm having a blast!

Awesome! That sounds pretty cool. I didn't do too much personally on my community hospital rotation, but the attending did let me cut my own section on a frozen and make up the slide and look at it. (Although I'm sure there will be a time where I'll groan about having to do it for the millionth time, I was pretty jazzed all the same.)

Anyhow, congrats on your (seemingly) final decision!

 

[mlw03]

Ok, so all the Radiology thoughts are now officially gone. I'm on my path elective and I'm loving it. They are letting me gross and dictate small cases and then sign out with the attending. I'm having a blast!

great to hear it, tiki. i'm getting to gross some smalls also. i actually kinda like it at this point - sure, it's mindless work, but i'll take grossing smalls over doing an H&P any day. the best part about grossing is that once you get fast at it, you can moonlight as a resident and get paid a decent hourly wage for it.

 

[Sean2tall]

How many programs are people thinking they will apply to?
I have a weak Step I but somewhat decent 3rd year grades - any recommendations for that?

 

[mlw03]

i'm thinking i'll apply to about 20 programs. my issue is going to be deciding how many interviews to do - most all of the 20 i'll apply to i'm truly interested in enough to want to see them for myself, but i know that more than 12-14 isn't going to be possible due to time and/or money constraints. and some of the ones i'm most interested are somewhat geographically isolated (ie, U Wash) so it's not like i can even cluster like someone applying to NYC programs could.

sean - for a step 1 score in the low 200s i would still think 25-30 programs applied to should be enough to get at least 10 interviews.

 

[Tiki]

I'm not sure how many I'm applying to. Our school has a rule where we are supposed to apply to 40, but I don't really feel like I need to apply to that many. I'm probably going to apply to about 20-25, and try to go on to 10-15 interviews. But most of my places are in the northeast, so travel shouldn't be so bad for me.

I can't believe it's time to do this already. 😱

 

[ygdrasil]

Really mlw03? You can moonlight as a grosser/Pathology assistant? Looking at Frieda, a lot of path programs say there's no moonlighting opportunities, but I always gave that a [shrug] because I didn't think Path residents did any moonlighting anyway.

Tiki, your school has a rule advising 40 programs? Is that just for Path? That seems a lil' excessive for FP or IM.

 

[docbiohazard]

40 programs seems excessive for most anything except the hypercompetitive specialities... I think the NRMP data shows something like ~8 interviews is the average for Path applicants? Can't remember where I saw that data now.

I had my list of 12, was trying to whittle it down to 10... now talked to some mentors and have maybe a couple to add on / add back to my list. Travelling is expensive, so I have a hard time imagining doing more than 10 interviews. Almost half of those will be local tho (no expense)...

I'm done with CK and in my SurgPath elective... I'm enjoying it, although it's a sloooow day today after a week of massive volume so I'd love to knock off early. MLW I've heard if your PS is >1 page it's liable to anger some of your readers... I'm impressed you could get more than a page. I have my PS draft written and it's terrible, but I'm hoping with a little love I can spruce it up...

Anyone up for posting putative lists of where you're applying? Or is it too early for that...

TGIF
BH

 

[Tiki]

Tiki, your school has a rule advising 40 programs? Is that just for Path? That seems a lil' excessive for FP or IM.

Yeah, they have a 40/20/10 rule for EVERYONE, even primary care. But there is no way I'm applying to forty programs. Honestly, I can't even come up with forty that I'm interested in. I definitely want to try to stay on the east coast.

 

[Sean2tall]

Yeah, they have a 40/20/10 rule for EVERYONE, even primary care. But there is no way I'm applying to forty programs. Honestly, I can't even come up with forty that I'm interested in. I definitely want to try to stay on the east coast.

What does that mean, 40 apps, 20 interviews, 10 ranks?

 

[Tiki]

Yep, which is insane to me. I can't afford to go on 20 interviews.

 

[mlw03]

nice to see everyone using this thread... go us!

ygdrasil: i got that info from a young attending at usf who said that she was able to do that when she was a resident here. i also know the current residents have the opportunity to moonlight grossing, but obviously the policies can vary from place to place. i certainly don't plan to consider that at all when ranking programs, but if it's available a few years down the road and i want to do it, maybe i will.

docbio: i was told that in ERAS our PS's get formatted to 1/2 inch margins all around and courier new size 10. when i go to that size my PS is about one and one-third pages. i'd love to hear comments from some of the upper level residents who may read PS's about whether that's too long or not. i really wouldn't know what to cut out should i have to, so i hope it's OK as is.

as to posting a tentative application list... well, i started the thread, so what the heck - here's mine. it's by no means final, nor in any particular order:

Duke
U North Carolina
U Pitt
U Virginia
U Maryland
Johns Hopkins
BIDMC
BWH
MGH
UTSW
U Wisconsin
U Michigan
Ohio State
U Minnesota
U Colorado
U New Mexico
U Washington
Oregon Health Sciences
U South Florida

 

[Tiki]

Hey, mlw, we are applying to quite a few of the same programs! Maybe we'll run into each other on the interview trail!

I think I posted my list, but here it is again:

Yale
Mt. Sinai
Columbia
Cornell
NYU
RWJMS
Pennyslvania Hospital
UPenn
Pitt
Thomas Jefferson
Brown
BWH
MGH
BID
Boston University
UMass
Johns Hopkins
UVa
Emory
UNC
Wake Forest
Duke
Vandy (maybe)
Vermont (maybe, it's a little too far north for me)
Dartmouth (again a maybe, a little too far north for me)

Honestly, at this point in the game, I'd like to end up in either NYC, Philly, Boston or Baltimore. But obviously that may change once I see some places.

 

[Sean2tall]

Pennyslvania Hospital
UPenn
Thomas Jefferson

Honestly, at this point in the game, I'd like to end up in either NYC, Philly, Boston or Baltimore. But obviously that may change once I see some places.

Do you know much about the Philly programs? I go to Temple and plan to do a rotation there in a couple months, but other than that semi-clueless.

My list looks like this so far:
Loyola (Chicago)
Northwestern
Rush
UChicago
U Illinois Chicago
Indiana
Allegheny General
Pittsburgh
Drexel
Pennsylvania
UPenn
Temple
Jefferson
Alabama
Ohio State

Maybe:
Boston, BID etc. (I am guessing I have no shot?)

PS: There is sort-of family reasons for the seemingly weird distribution of geographical area.

 

[King Arthur]

I just want to say that this is starting to get exciting.

 

[Trenchcoat]

I'm currently doing an away at BWH and it's fantastic. I'm definetly applying to path. Here's the shortlist:

BWH
BIDMC
MGH
St. Luke's/Roosevelt
Sinai
Columbia
Cornell
Hopkins
UPenn
UVA

 

[CornellDerm]

see also a recent post by me "A message for the budding pathologist."

 

[BU Pathology]

I have read literally thousands of personal statements in my former capacity as Assistant Dean of Admissions. While preparing Dean's letters, which are formally known as Medical School Performance Evaluations, I read dozens more. You should attempt to keep your personal statement to one page. When you are going through several applications those which are long and winding tend to not be compelling. It is difficult to tell a story in one page that conveys your unique characteristics and why you would be excellent for pathology. Spend time on your personal essay, write carefully and have more than 1 person review what you wrote.

I want to put in a shameless plug for the pathology training program at Boston University. We are the home institution of the historic Mallory Institute of Pathology with a rich tradition of teaching. Dr. Robbins (you may have read portions of his textbook, Pathologic Basis of Disease) was a faculty member in the department.

For more information about our program visit the residents portion of the website: http://www.bumc.bu.edu/Dept/Content.aspx?DepartmentID=63&PageID=577

We also have an online residency brochure: http://www.bumc.bu.edu/Dept/Content.aspx?DepartmentID=63&PageID=9807

Dan Remick, M.D.
Chair of Pathology, Boston University School of Medicine

 

[docbiohazard]

OK, here are my current lists, in no particular order:

Definite: MGH, BWH, Hopkins, UPenn, UW, UCSF, UTSW, UT-Houston, Methodist, Baylor (Houston), UTMB.

Currently considering/reconsidering: BIDMC, Emory, UNC, Vanderbilt, Stanford.

So between 11 - 16, from the looks of it. I have to learn more about UNC and Vandy, as they were highly recommended to me recently and I haven't looked into them much. I know it's highly geographically varied, but like someone else mentioned, I also have certain family/geographical decisions I have to make.

I have been told (second hand, resident-to-resident info) that Stanford is having "issues" but the person couldn't remember the particulars - perhaps high faculty turnover / a lot of people leaving? Also heard horror stories about Emory residents having to gross specimens at night into the wee hours of the night - but granted, that's only an issue during SurgPath... I'd welcome any second opinions about these programs or any others...

BH

 

[pathgrrl]

I'm a new member here -- I'm a MD/PhD applying for AP/CP in 2008. Just curious if we are continuing the list of applicants? I'm going to try to stay fairly anonymous, since I'm the only one at my school applying (I think).

2008 Pathology Applicants:
mlw03 - USF COM
pathgrrl - somewhere in New England

 

[DarksideAllstar]

I have been told (second hand, resident-to-resident info) that Stanford is having "issues" but the person couldn't remember the particulars - perhaps high faculty turnover / a lot of people leaving?

I probably wouldn't avoid applying and interviewing there because of hearsay, particularly if there were no specific issues that the person could "recall". I recommend applying and interviewing first hand to see if there were issues that you think would make for some work environment you just couldn't tolerate. My interview day last year was probably one of the better ones that I had-- the residents and faculty were some of the nicest and most accomodating that I had met. If you are planning on applying to UCSF, you might as well try for Stanford and see if you could coordinate interviews (if you get them, of course). Stanford sees almost as much good material as we do up here, although the weather is nicer down there 😉

 

[WrightGiemsa]

my short list for now for anyone that cares:

NYU
NYPresby

Texas (various programs)

JH
BWH
MGH
Emory
Vandy (maybe also)

 

[Tiki]

I finally asked for my LORs and everyone said yes. YAY! I feel so much better having done it.

I'm getting one from Path, one from Surgery and one from Medicine. Now I just have to sit down and write this stupid personal statement.