Another residency advice thread

[toastytoastie]

I'm a fourth year medical student currently on a leave of absence to pursue a one year of structural biochemistry research through the HHMI med fellows program. When I started medical school, I had every intention of pursuing a physician scientist career and assumed I would apply into internal medicine. Upon reflection following my subinternships (and contrasting my patient-care experiences with my current lab experience), I think I would be happier without training that directly deals with patient care.

I shadowed a pathologist and am interested in pursuing a path residency. I haven't done any electives yet, but was planning on doing a general path elective when I return to M4 year next summer (which would be required to get path LORs).

I have a few questions:
1) How is the academic job market? There are a lot of posts about the terrible path job market, but I'm interested in an academic career with strong research bias.
2) Should an academic career not pan out for me, are there opportunities to move into industry or to work at a national lab from path?
3) How competitive will I be? I am from a top-ten US medical school and scored in the low 250's on Step 1 and high passed family medicine and neurology with honors in my other core M3 clerkships (surgery, OB/GYN, internal, psychiatry, pediatrics). In terms of my pertinent M4 electives, I did HP a pediatrics clinical elective and honored my ICU and gen internal medicine sub-internship (as well as my other electives). I am taking CK at the end of August and have not yet taken CS.

Thanks!

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[ClinPathDO]

I'm a fourth year medical student currently on a leave of absence to pursue a one year of structural biochemistry research through the HHMI med fellows program. When I started medical school, I had every intention of pursuing a physician scientist career and assumed I would apply into internal medicine. Upon reflection following my subinternships (and contrasting my patient-care experiences with my current lab experience), I think I would be happier without training that directly deals with patient care.

I shadowed a pathologist and am interested in pursuing a path residency. I haven't done any electives yet, but was planning on doing a general path elective when I return to M4 year next summer (which would be required to get path LORs).

I have a few questions:
1) How is the academic job market? There are a lot of posts about the terrible path job market, but I'm interested in an academic career with strong research bias.
2) Should an academic career not pan out for me, are there opportunities to move into industry or to work at a national lab from path?
3) How competitive will I be? I am from a top-ten US medical school and scored in the low 250's on Step 1 and high passed family medicine and neurology with honors in my other core M3 clerkships (surgery, OB/GYN, internal, psychiatry, pediatrics). In terms of my pertinent M4 electives, I did HP a pediatrics clinical elective and honored my ICU and gen internal medicine sub-internship (as well as my other electives). I am taking CK at the end of August and have not yet taken CS.

Thanks!

Do you want to go to Harvard or Hopkins?

 

[pathslides]

If you know you want academics, you will have no problem getting a job.

 

[BU Pathology]

The American Board of Pathology recently approved a sanctioned physician-scientist pathway, specifically to recruit candidates such as yourself into our discipline. You should work closely with a field specific adviser from pathology to help determine which residency programs will provide you with the appropriate training.

The pathology job market has good jobs for good candidates.

Daniel Remick, M.D.
Boston University School of Medicine, Boston Medical Center

 

[deleted314957]

I'm a fourth year medical student currently on a leave of absence to pursue a one year of structural biochemistry research through the HHMI med fellows program. When I started medical school, I had every intention of pursuing a physician scientist career and assumed I would apply into internal medicine. Upon reflection following my subinternships (and contrasting my patient-care experiences with my current lab experience), I think I would be happier without training that directly deals with patient care.

I shadowed a pathologist and am interested in pursuing a path residency. I haven't done any electives yet, but was planning on doing a general path elective when I return to M4 year next summer (which would be required to get path LORs).

I have a few questions:
1) How is the academic job market? There are a lot of posts about the terrible path job market, but I'm interested in an academic career with strong research bias.
2) Should an academic career not pan out for me, are there opportunities to move into industry or to work at a national lab from path?
3) How competitive will I be? I am from a top-ten US medical school and scored in the low 250's on Step 1 and high passed family medicine and neurology with honors in my other core M3 clerkships (surgery, OB/GYN, internal, psychiatry, pediatrics). In terms of my pertinent M4 electives, I did HP a pediatrics clinical elective and honored my ICU and gen internal medicine sub-internship (as well as my other electives). I am taking CK at the end of August and have not yet taken CS.

Thanks!

“I haven’t done any electives yet”.... and then, later in your post, you
list a whole slew of electives you’ve done? Perhaps a little trolling?
Do you really think you would be less than very competitive to land
a residency in a non competitive field like path?
And, we are all really broken up over your high pass in peds

 

[toastytoastie]

“I haven’t done any electives yet”.... and then, later in your post, you
list a whole slew of electives you’ve done? Perhaps a little trolling?
Do you really think you would be less than very competitive to land
a residency in a non competitive field like path?
And, we are all really broken up over your high pass in peds

Yikes! Much salt. I was unclear--I haven't done any pathology electives--I have done some of my M4 electives. When I was considering applying into internal medicine, my Step 1 score and my high passes (including in that M4 peds clinical elective) were cited by my advisor as possibly limiting factors. I'm just trying to get the lay of the land here.