208/85 USMLE and 547/82 COMLEX

[sophiejane]

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I know there are mostly brilliant people on this board who are great test takers and I truly applaud you all, but I'm not one of you, unfortunately.

I'm in the top 50% of my class and if my current rotation is any indication, I should do well on the wards this year and get good letters.

I want an IM residency at a somewhat respectable hospital in Austin, Dallas, or Houston, then a geriatrics fellowship somewhere.

What will I have to do from now on to be competitive, other than do better on step 2 and get good letters?

Thanks in advance for constructive advice.

 

[corpsmanUP]

I know you may not agree at this stage in your career, but if you want to do rural medicine, especially geriatrics, you would actually be much better off going the family medicine route. Most rural docs are FP's, and the ones I have met who are internists are out of their element. And because I know you, I think you will end up liking family medicine because you will probably like all your rotations. That is how you know you like FM, because you like all the rotations 80% of the time. I can promise you that if you apply yourself, you will get plenty of medicine in an FM program. The best programs are the ones that are on the fringe of the rural world anway, but near a big city for specialty availability. For instance, look at the Conroe FM program near Houston. They are unopposed but have a great rounded experience. It will be really difficult to get in the rural medicine mentality if all you have ever done is inpatient big city medicine. And I think you will see that FM docs are a lot like you, a bit non-traditional. Medicine guys just think differently. They overuse the healthcare services because that is what internal medicine does. They spend 95% of their lives looking for the elusive diagnosis, while the FM guys spend 95% of the time looking to make a difference in someone's life regardless of the diagnosis. I will ask you a year from now what you are interested in and my guess is that it won't be IM. You'll see!! Take it as a compliment. Not everyone is cut out for FM but you are. And please, don't out me on this forum as I think you might accidentally have done were I not to ask you nicely not to. 😉