4th yr. Anesthesia Elective

[J10sstar]

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First off, I'll give you a little background on myself......I'm a 4th year Carib medical student with a Step 1 score between 200-210 who's interested in applying for Anesthesia in the 2010 Match.

Today, I received my evaluation from my Anesthesia rotation I completed a few weeks ago. For some reason, I received a 75 on my evaluation. Sort of shocking to me since the attending who evaluated me constantly complimented me on my knowledge within the field of anesthesia. I plan on asking the attending about my grade in the next few days. Nothing bad ever happen between the two of us. I routinely arrived early, asked (what I thought were) intelligent questions, even stayed late a couple times per week. Obviously the goal was to ace this rotation, but it didn't happen.
I wasn't planning on asking this attending for a LOR nor does this hospital have an Anesthesia residency program, so should I worry about my grade I received?

Does one's grade in their Anesthesia rotation influence their ability to receive interviews and possibly a residency? Everyone keeps saying not to sweat the small stuff, but I'm having a hard time with this one.

Thanks for you imput!

 

[RxBoy]

First off, I'll give you a little background on myself......I'm a 4th year Carib medical student with a Step 1 score between 200-210 who's interested in applying for Anesthesia in the 2010 Match.

Today, I received my evaluation from my Anesthesia rotation I completed a few weeks ago. For some reason, I received a 75 on my evaluation. Sort of shocking to me since the attending who evaluated me constantly complimented me on my knowledge within the field of anesthesia. I plan on asking the attending about my grade in the next few days. Nothing bad ever happen between the two of us. I routinely arrived early, asked (what I thought were) intelligent questions, even stayed late a couple times per week. Obviously the goal was to ace this rotation, but it didn't happen.
I wasn't planning on asking this attending for a LOR nor does this hospital have an Anesthesia residency program, so should I worry about my grade I received?

Does one's grade in their Anesthesia rotation influence their ability to receive interviews and possibly a residency? Everyone keeps saying not to sweat the small stuff, but I'm having a hard time with this one.

Thanks for you imput!

I wouldn't worry so much about the grade as I would the step 1 score. I honored my anesthesia rotation and not 1 program was able to (or cared to) see my 4th year grades. Didn't help nor hurt me. For the most part, they know 4th year grades are a joke. And not trying to dog the carib students but they generally don't weigh your medical school grades that heavily either.

What they do weigh heavily is your step 1 and 2 scores. Your primary concerns in level of importance right now:
1) Shoot for a very high step 2 score and have that score available before Sep 1.
2) You need great LOR's... Specific to you, not vague general LORs.
3) You need to find carib friendly programs that you like, and rotate at that instituion/s. You will also need to apply very broadly.

 

[DO4lifer]

agree with Rxboy. Rotating at these away hospitals were you have a good shot, will give you a shoe in for the interview, and a better chance at matching.

 

[bigdan]

OP -

I agree with the two posts above. The anesthesia grade does not matter. I'd further underscore the Step 1 thing...that's going to be an issue unless the Step 2CK score is much higher. MANY programs set Step score cutoffs for granting interviews, so knock out that CK exam!

dc

 

[J10sstar]

Thanks for the quick replies everyone. I know my Step 2 score needs to be a great one, so I've been focusing on accomplishing that.