Another WAMC?

[scopie]

I’ll keep it brief and really appreciate any input.
- American citizenship
- American grad
- 8 pubmed indexed publications (mostly case studies, 3 original research in so so journals) 2 first authors, several poster presentations
- didn’t rock step 1; 208, 240 on step 2, don’t remember step 3 (does it really matter though?). 80th percentile on ABIM (I know it doesn’t matter, but just to show I can do well on boards). All passed on first attempt. 1 med school class fail, passed on retake no problems and graduated on time with no other red flags on record
- graduated 3 years ago, working as a hospitalist since with continued research and med student education (worked alongside course directors on GI curriculum given to MS2s) and I work close with residents
- home program didn’t have a fellowship program, letters from nearby program that did but community program with no big names and they always take internally so I guess chances there are low. Current hospital I work at has GI fellowship with some bigger names but haven’t worked with them and will only be able to work with them as a researcher

TL;DR: American grad, no visa issues, out for 3 years, lackluster step 1, ok step 2, mediocre research, no letters from “big names”, no home program. Any chance or should I really start looking at other long term plans?

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[hemosuccus]

I’ll keep it brief and really appreciate any input.
- American citizenship
- American grad
- 8 pubmed indexed publications (mostly case studies, 3 original research in so so journals) 2 first authors, several poster presentations
- didn’t rock step 1; 208, 240 on step 2, don’t remember step 3 (does it really matter though?). 80th percentile on ABIM (I know it doesn’t matter, but just to show I can do well on boards). All passed on first attempt. 1 med school class fail, passed on retake no problems and graduated on time with no other red flags on record
- graduated 3 years ago, working as a hospitalist since with continued research and med student education (worked alongside course directors on GI curriculum given to MS2s) and I work close with residents
- home program didn’t have a fellowship program, letters from nearby program that did but community program with no big names and they always take internally so I guess chances there are low. Current hospital I work at has GI fellowship with some bigger names but haven’t worked with them and will only be able to work with them as a researcher

TL;DR: American grad, no visa issues, out for 3 years, lackluster step 1, ok step 2, mediocre research, no letters from “big names”, no home program. Any chance or should I really start looking at other long term plans?

How productive have you been over the past 3 years? That's a decent time esp as Hospitalist to be able to piece together good research and garner letters. If you have those I'd say apply. The work on curricula, ABIM score, residents etc wont move the needle in a meaningful way. You will filter out of some places due to step score, not recent grad etc, but would certainly garner interest if the past 3 years have been very productive. Tough, not impossible. Would have a backup too.

 

[scopie]

Thank you for the reply. One manuscript (first author) and one case report over the last 2 years. One more manuscript in the works as first author. Basically continued the research because I know I need to, but supplemented with something I was actually passionate about in working on the GI curriculum and education.

Working on establishing more connections at the time, since there’s nothing I can do about step 1 at this point. With the ABIM score, I just want to make it apparent to PDs that step 1 wasn’t a pattern and more of a anomaly (I know exactly what went wrong and fixed it immediately) and that I won’t have ANY issues passing my GI boards, if that is of any concern to them at all.

Obviously I don’t have a shot at any of the big name programs, I was just hoping on insight from more of the community PDs or those affiliated with the selection process in these settings, whether they thought that step 1 would just screen me out of anything before the rest of the application can be looked at.