Additional auditions necessary if I have home program?

[Coltuna]

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Hello all,

Planning to apply IM. Wondering if it's necessary to do additional auditions/AI's as a DO student if I have a "home" IM program? I'm a pretty decent applicant otherwise-- Step 1: 24X; Top quartile pre-clinical ranking; Honored IM shelf/rotation. From the midwest and plan on targeting mostly midwest programs. Would be perfectly happy in good community/lower-tier university program. Thanks!

 

[bighoss77]

You are fine for IM without doing other auditions

 

[cadingcading]

Depends if you want to audition at a reach place or not. As we saw this cycle, it wasn't just about board scores. So if any of your places of interest at reaches then I would do one there.

 

[deleted898021]

If there are specialty guidelines from whatever the national IM specialty resident organization is, follow those. If they explicitly say to not do an away if you have a home program then your question is answered for you.

There ARE programs out there that will hold it against you if you go against recommendations like that. It’s not everyone, but it’s more than zero and you have no way of knowing who those are.

If there isn’t a recommendation from the national organization, I still couldn’t see a better way to torture myself than to do IM sub-Is. Pretty much useless, unless you’re dead set on somewhere like Northwestern and are a DO who might not otherwise be considered.

I dont think any other specialty other than EM cared about those guidelines, and that was last year.. but yea OP prbly doesn't need to do that many IM sub I's but academic letters from known places go a long way...

 

[fldoctorgirl]

We have similar stats and goals, and I'm not planning on doing any. I'll do the 3 sub-I's that we're required to do at places that I wouldn't mind matching at but aren't in my top 5. I feel like it can only hurt us.

 

[group_theory]

If you can do an audition rotation (sub-I or AI or whatever it is called) at an ACGME IM residency, preferably university hospital, it would go a long way (not just at that residency but other residencies). It would be a good experience to see/experience what a university ward rotation would be like, plus it reassures program directors that you have had proper inpatient medicine exposure. Unfortunately many DO schools have poor clinical rotations and there are students who graduate without ever doing inpatient medicine with residents/attendings. It was a concern when I was a student (several PDs asked me what my experiences were during interviews - fortunately I did my core IM rotation 3rd year with an ACGME IM residency program, and I did a 4th year sub-I at a university hospital and had my LORs from Residency IM PDs). Later (as faculty), I again noticed this lack of consistency in clinical rotations (DO students) when I was reviewing and interviewing students for residency and the lack of "experience" was brought up a few times during rank meeting (where it negatively affected how the applicants were ranked).

Not having such rotation will not tank your application, and most likely you will do fine without it. But if you can do one, it is good experience (you may find yourself preferring a community based IM program over a university based IM program) and it open more doors/options for residency programs

Just my $0.02 (not adjusted for inflation, opinion currency tied to Bitcoin real-time value)

 

[Deecee2DO]

Depends if you want to audition at a reach place or not. As we saw this cycle, it wasn't just about board scores. So if any of your places of interest at reaches then I would do one there.

What else was it about that we saw this cycle? Board scores plus... the usual? Research, clerkship grades, letters?

 

[Deecee2DO]

If there are specialty guidelines from whatever the national IM specialty resident organization is, follow those. If they explicitly say to not do an away if you have a home program then your question is answered for you.

There ARE programs out there that will hold it against you if you go against recommendations like that. It’s not everyone, but it’s more than zero and you have no way of knowing who those are.

If there isn’t a recommendation from the national organization, I still couldn’t see a better way to torture myself than to do IM sub-Is. Pretty much useless, unless you’re dead set on somewhere like Northwestern and are a DO who might not otherwise be considered.

Spot on. Couldnt have said it better. If youre a DO trying yo break glass ceilings at top tier academic programs then yes a Sub-I at these places is a good idea. Doing a sub-I for an academic letter is also helpful imo but not a make or break just helpful

 

[cadingcading]

What else was it about that we saw this cycle? Board scores plus... the usual? Research, clerkship grades, letters?

It was a total crap shoot honestly. We had a few people with great board scores, etc, etc who didn't match to their desired specialty or didn't match at all. Then we had people who probably shouldn't be in medicine match to great programs. If there is one thing I know, programs are going to be in for a surprise this year when they meet the real non-Zoom people. Those who I know matched great IM programs did SubIs there. It is a way to get yourself in the door when you are competing with a lot of randos for virtual interviews.

 

[Deecee2DO]

It was a total crap shoot honestly. We had a few people with great board scores, etc, etc who didn't match to their desired specialty or didn't match at all. Then we had people who probably shouldn't be in medicine match to great programs. If there is one thing I know, programs are going to be in for a surprise this year when they meet the real non-Zoom people. Those who I know matched great IM programs did SubIs there. It is a way to get yourself in the door when you are competing with a lot of randos for virtual interviews.

are these DO applicants applying academic IM?

 

[cadingcading]

are these DO applicants applying academic IM?

Yep. Unless these places have had people from your school a lot of the ivory tower type places are hesitant to take people from schools where the clinical education is questionable. Just keeping it real. Good places with lots of DOs like Cleveland Clinic would be open but I would do an audition there unless you truly are not sociable. For you to match IM at like Harvard, etc - you really need something special like couples matching, etc.

 

[Deecee2DO]

Yep. Unless these places have had people from your school a lot of the ivory tower type places are hesitant to take people from schools where the clinical education is questionable. Just keeping it real. Good places with lots of DOs like Cleveland Clinic would be open but I would do an audition there unless you truly are not sociable. For you to match IM at like Harvard, etc - you really need something special like couples matching, etc.

My school matches Wake GT Jeff Philly etc which are solid mid tiers. We have decent rotation sites with inpatient teaching wards and were an established school so I dont think rotation sites are the issue its the whole being a DO thing that is the problem unfortunately haha which is something out of my control. Even couples matching no DO is matching at MGH. The top tier applivants for IM this year from my schol got Interviews from Brown Dart GT etc but ranked them lower due to location and wanting to stay around NJ. However i think doing sub-Is at academic places can. be a huge plus if one gets a letter and or does well there