Advice - Am I Competitive Enough?

[IncognitoMD]

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Hello all,

I'm about to enter into a research project w/ a Rad Onc and was wondering if it was even worth my time trying to get in the field.

Graduating from a US School (not highly ranked, but w/ a Rad Onc Program)
Board Score: 224
Reasonable Class Rank (maybe upper quartile?? upper half for sure)
No AOA
2 years Breast Cancer Research
1 Year Neuroscience Research
Summer Research and Presentation in Cholangiocarcinoma

I am not picky on where to go, just want to get in somewhere. Most likely will look at the top 50 schools and pick only one to apply too.

Thanks for all your help (seriously, I've been on this forum so many times I lost count).

 

[napoleondynamite]

Are you a third or fourth year med student? If you're a fourth year, have you done a radonc rotation yet and do you have LOR?

 

[IncognitoMD]

I'm 1st semester 3rd year and I plan to definitely do a Rad Onc Rotation and possibly one away as well.

I do plan to get some LOR, but don't have any yet.

 

[Pewl]

Are you a third or fourth year med student? If you're a fourth year, have you done a radonc rotation yet and do you have LOR?

When you gather LOR's, what do you do with them? Do you have them sent to you or to some sort of LOR service (e.g. interfolio?) If you worked on a summer project with someone should you request one and just hold onto it for a while?

 

[gerido]

When you gather LOR's, what do you do with them? Do you have them sent to you or to some sort of LOR service (e.g. interfolio?) If you worked on a summer project with someone should you request one and just hold onto it for a while?

You may not realize it, but you have a bad habit of hijacking other people's threads before they have a chance to get their question answered.

 

[Pewl]

You may not realize it, but you have a bad habit of hijacking other people's threads before they have a chance to get their question answered.

My apologies to the OP if he believes I have done so, but I believe that my question can be considered an adjunct to his original question. NapoleonDynamite has recommended LOR's as part of his response to the OP and I believe my question to be pertinent to the topic of LOR's in general.

Besides, this is an internet forum, not a jetliner or a train. 🙄

 

[napoleondynamite]

When you gather LOR's, what do you do with them? Do you have them sent to you or to some sort of LOR service (e.g. interfolio?) If you worked on a summer project with someone should you request one and just hold onto it for a while?

Normally (at least this is how it was at my school) the letter writer sends the letter to your Dean's Office who can hold onto it for you until you need it. It may sound like a sweet idea for them to give you the letter (ie-giving you the chance to see it) but when the time comes for letters to be uploaded to ERAS, your Dean's Office will normally require that the letter writer send them the letter directly (ie-it cannot come from you). During this phase, the letter writer will have to attach an official form you print off of ERAS which they sign indicating that you have not had the opportunity to review or see the letter. There is a box they can check that says you have seen the letter, but my impression is that if you have that box checked, your letter will lose weight from PD's. So the short answer to your question is, I would request that the writer send the LOR to your Dean's Office directly, then later on you can just drop by with that ERAS form for them to sign when the time comes.

 

[napoleondynamite]

Hey Incognito:

Sounds like you've got some research experience, any pubs from that? If not, it's not going to help you very much. Your board score is actually about average for accepted radonc applicants in the recent past, so while it's not smokin' it certainly shouldn't exclude you from the process. Research on the other hand, can exclude you from the process if you don't have a publication (which may come accross as hollow from a guy like me who matched without any significant publications..but I was definitely the exception). Since you're in your third year (with all kinds of free time, right?) you've got some road ahead of you and time to get something submitted. Focus all of your energy on that.

Beyond that, be cool, snuggle up with your radonc chair, get to know people, and don't be hoser. Good luck!

 

[IncognitoMD]

thx so much for the advice!
i have no pubs, but will def. try to get one.

 

[Thaiger75]

Focus all of your energy on that.

Well, I wouldn't focus ALL of your energy into that. Your number priority should definitely still be getting good grades/scores on your core clerkships. Publications is not a necessity to match, but definitely ups your competiveness. Showing some interest in research via an ongoing project, abstract, etc. is pretty much a near requirement nowadays.

 

[napoleondynamite]

Two scenarios:

1. No publication, honor all third year clerkships.
2. Publication with zero honors in third year clerkships.

Which candidate has the best odds of matching? (That's a serious question by the way, not a rhetorical one, I'm interested in what others think about this). I mean, obviously I'm painting an absolutist-type scenario. The ideal would be to perform well during 3rd year and also to get a publication. But I think the quandry is a real one. With very limited time during third year, if someone decides late on radonc, where is the effort best spent if you have scant research experience? At my school, to honor a clerkship during third year you would have had to spend pretty much all of your outside time studying for the shelf exam as it was so heavily weighted towards the final grade. I was the guy who always got awesome clinical evaluations, then missed honoring because of the shelf exams..

From my perspective, if you have to assign relative importance to these two areas (in terms of where you're going to put in the time outside of an already hectic year) I'd still vote for research. My impression is that many programs will screen you out of the process without something listed in the publication section of ERAS. Only then do they look further to discover things like actual performance during third year..

 

[Thaiger75]

Two scenarios:

1. No publication, honor all third year clerkships.
2. Publication with zero honors in third year clerkships.

Which candidate has the best odds of matching? QUOTE]

I really don't think you can say when you're comparing extremes like that. It's completely program and PD-dependent. But in the broad spectrum of things, if there are variations of scenarios between these 2 extremes, I would favor someone closer to the #2 scenario as being more competitive (ie. someone with 1-2 honors with an abstract or something published).

 

[Onlooker]

regarding who has better odds, i agree with thaiger that it is program dependent, and i also agree that the better chance lies with a student with 1-2 honors and a pub. Unfortunately, i think the need to have a publication as a med student is overemphasized. Yes, there are places where it should be emphasized (like with MDA or such places, which i don't feel are the rule), and yes, if you do happen to do research in or after med school and get published, then it will only help you. However, i know many former and current residents who had research experience in rad onc without publications when they applied and it was not held against them in the programs they were/are in. The majority of programs would be very happy with an achieving, hard working, genuinely interested applicant who does not have rad onc publications, and many of these programs have accepted such people. As another example, there have been many applicants who finished med school and were doing dedicated rad onc research after med school without having pubs at the time they applied and were accepted. I feel that for many programs (again, there are several exceptions but the people who post here seem to be gearing toward matching into one out of many places not one out of a few places) it is the commitment to and interest in rad onc that are some of the things they are looking for, and whatever way you can sincerely get those things across, be it a publication, research experience, research fellowship, etc., will help you.

 

[Gfunk6]

regarding who has better odds, i agree with thaiger that it is program dependent, and i also agree that the better chance lies with a student with 1-2 honors and a pub. Unfortunately, i think the need to have a publication as a med student is overemphasized.

Let me be the third to concur with the opinons of Thaiger/Onlooker.

There is NO magic formula as stephew repeatedly has pointed out. Further, as Onlooker stated, different programs are looking for different things.

The need to have a publication (e.g. research paper in a published journal) IS vastly over-stated. However, applying students need to have some end-point for their research. Presentations at national or local meetings (even med student research day!) is also a big plus. The key is this - don't do research with absolutely nothing to show for it. If you have no publication, presentation, or abstract after you did research it demonstrates one of two things (a) your research didn't amount to squat or (b) you were too lazy to present the results of your work.

Do NOT minimize clinical work. Ultimately you will be a practicing radiation oncologist who sees patients and it is critically important to demonstrate clinical accumen by honors and good evaluations during your 3rd/4th year.

 

[Pewl]

Let me be the third to concur with the opinons of Thaiger/Onlooker.

There is NO magic formula as stephew repeatedly has pointed out. Further, as Onlooker stated, different programs are looking for different things.

The need to have a publication (e.g. research paper in a published journal) IS vastly over-stated. However, applying students need to have some end-point for their research. Presentations at national or local meetings (even med student research day!) is also a big plus. The key is this - don't do research with absolutely nothing to show for it. If you have no publication, presentation, or abstract after you did research it demonstrates one of two things (a) your research didn't amount to squat or (b) you were too lazy to present the results of your work.

Do NOT minimize clinical work. Ultimately you will be a practicing radiation oncologist who sees patients and it is critically important to demonstrate clinical accumen by honors and good evaluations during your 3rd/4th year.

Well said, guys. And with that being said, I'm assuming a number of you have submitted an abstract to ASTRO. Am I correct in my understanding that you do not, in fact, need to be present at the ASTRO meeting after you submit an abstract? Can you simply send like your powerpoint or something and they'll put it up for you? Or is that something I heard incorrectly?

 

[Gfunk6]

If you submit an abstract at ASTRO that is accepted, then you are expected to present it in poster form. It does not have to be YOU per se, but one of the authors should be present. Particularly good (or politically well-connected 😉 ) abstracts can be accepted for oral presentation, in which case you should make every effort to attend.

Note that ASTRO is not the be-all, end-all and there are several other research socities that can accept abstracts (e.g. AACR, ASCO).