Advice for US-IMG to match neurology with a red flag. Step 1 237

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bowler_13

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Current MS3 at SGU (carib med school). I repeated one class during my second year (didn't fail it the first time) as I was taking an extra class alongside my med school classes - I am a dual degree student (MD/MPH) and the workload was crazy.

I ended up with an A in the class and got a 237 on step 1. I have one publication and some posters, but aside from a poster on migraines, nothing related to neurology. I have also honoured all of my clinical rotations and made sure to either work on some research or posters for conferences during the rotations to show I have improved my time management skills.

I currently have one guaranteed letter from a neuro attending. I was wondering if anyone could give me some advice for how to address the red flag, anything I can do to improve my app and what my chances of matching are?
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bowler_13 said:
Current MS3 at SGU (carib med school). I repeated one class during my second year (didn't fail it the first time) as I was taking an extra class alongside my med school classes - I am a dual degree student (MD/MPH) and the workload was crazy.

I ended up with an A in the class and got a 237 on step 1. I have one publication and some posters, but aside from a poster on migraines, nothing related to neurology. I have also honoured all of my clinical rotations and made sure to either work on some research or posters for conferences during the rotations to show I have improved my time management skills.

I currently have one guaranteed letter from a neuro attending. I was wondering if anyone could give me some advice for how to address the red flag, anything I can do to improve my app and what my chances of matching are?
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Just say what you mentioned here. Seems reasonable, esp since you improved and did well on Steps.
 
deathmerchant said:
Just say what you mentioned here. Seems reasonable, esp since you improved and did well on Steps.
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Do you think it's worth mentioning in my personal statement? I've heard mixed things about this so I'm really not sure what to do. On one hand I'd like to keep my PS as positive as possible, but I also don't want to be filtered out before the interviews where I could explain my situation if needed - it's going to be mentioned in my MSPE (a couple of sentences)
 
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bowler_13 said:
Do you think it's worth mentioning in my personal statement? I've heard mixed things about this so I'm really not sure what to do. On one hand I'd like to keep my PS as positive as possible, but I also don't want to be filtered out before the interviews where I could explain my situation if needed - it's going to be mentioned in my MSPE (a couple of sentences)
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Thats a tricky situation honestly. You will hear mixed responses from people. Im not sure but I personally would not have mentioned it on my PS.
 
Dude, don't mention these. I dunno how it goes for carribs, but for my friend who had a "gangrenous" med school transcript, he didn't mention this anywhere and wasn't asked about it either. In my med school, if you fail a subj you have a retake after the holidays if u fail that also, you take it next year with the junior batch as they take the retake exam.
My friend failed at least 8-10 subj in the 5 years of med school. your score is good enough. he matched comfortably in IM with 250s/240s.

Unless you repeated a whole year, like u had to extend your grad coz of failures, I wouldn't recommend mentioning it. if they ask just say it as u typed.
 
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bigamygdala said:
Dude, don't mention these. I dunno how it goes for carribs, but for my friend who had a "gangrenous" med school transcript, he didn't mention this anywhere and wasn't asked about it either. In my med school, if you fail a subj you have a retake after the holidays if u fail that also, you take it next year with the junior batch as they take the retake exam.
My friend failed at least 8-10 subj in the 5 years of med school. your score is good enough. he matched comfortably in IM with 250s/240s.

Unless you repeated a whole year, like u had to extend your grad coz of failures, I wouldn't recommend mentioning it. if they ask just say it as u typed.
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Yeah I've been hearing this from some people. Luckily I didn't actually fail anything. Just want to make sure I at least get the interviews and not filtered out beforehand. Guessing your friend is an AMG? Find it hard to see that person matching as an IMG
 
bowler_13 said:
Yeah I've been hearing this from some people. Luckily I didn't actually fail anything. Just want to make sure I at least get the interviews and not filtered out beforehand. Guessing your friend is an AMG? Find it hard to see that person matching as an IMG
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nope he is an img, he pre matched btw ( just to be safe), but had 12 ivs for I'm. (most pd don't care what u did in med school and look at ur step scores, that's for non-carribs since we don't rotate etc in the US, that's why am not sure if this also applies to you)
 
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Neurology is not competitive. I suspect you will not have a hard time to match if you also get an above average score in step2.
 
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Just explain how you did here when interviewing.
Good luck!
 
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neurochica said:
Just explain how you did here when interviewing.
Good luck!
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Do you think I should talk about it in my personal statement or just leave it for the interview? I'm hearing mixed things about this and have no idea what to do
 
bowler_13 said:
Do you think I should talk about it in my personal statement or just leave it for the interview? I'm hearing mixed things about this and have no idea what to do
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I would.
 
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The 2020 nrmp report is out.

this might be of interest to you.



1596455321802.png





1596455343120.png





1596455355871.png












TLDR: Youll be ok.
 
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bigamygdala said:
The 2020 nrmp report is out.

this might be of interest to you.



View attachment 314781




View attachment 314782




View attachment 314783











TLDR: Youll be ok.
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So I finally got me step2 ck score back - 240. Pretty disappointed tbh as it was 10+ points below all of my practice exams scores. Pretty shocked right now. I can see it's above the mean score for neuro, but I think it is the mean or just below the mean for CK overall. Do you think this score changes my chances in any way?
 
240 is fine for CK. As long as it isn't a large deviation from step 1 it rarely helps or hurts you much.
 
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