Applying General Surgery as a DO- signals?

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ChocolateChip>Oreos

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Hello all,

I'm at a DO program and currently preparing for applying for general surgery residency. I would like to pursue a residency at an academic program. I am from the Midwest

I scored in the lower 250's on STEP 2 and have honored 4 rotations- psych, peds, surgery, and IM. I am ranked in the top 20% of my class and am in GHS. I have >30 research outcomes with 13 of those being publications. I also have various volunteering activities.

Just wondering- when thinking about signaling should I primarily signal DO programs? Split it even 50/50 academic vs community? How would you go about doing this.
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ChocolateChip>Oreos said:
Hello all,

I'm at a DO program and currently preparing for applying for general surgery residency. I would like to pursue a residency at an academic program. I am from the Midwest

I scored in the lower 250's on STEP 2 and have honored 4 rotations- psych, peds, surgery, and IM. I am ranked in the top 20% of my class and am in GHS. I have >30 research outcomes with 13 of those being publications. I also have various volunteering activities.

Just wondering- when thinking about signaling should I primarily signal DO programs? Split it even 50/50 academic vs community? How would you go about doing this.
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Split 50/50.

Apply broadly. See my AMA that’s posted somewhere in the DO student forum.
 
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Make sure you apply to a lot of community programs as a backup. Good applicants from my low tier MD school have a hard time matching academic surgery and usually end up community. Not saying that would be you but just apply broadly
 
voxveritatisetlucis said:
Make sure you apply to a lot of community programs as a backup. Good applicants from my low tier MD school have a hard time matching academic surgery and usually end up community. Not saying that would be you but just apply broadly
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do you think it is doable for IMGs to match in community programs?
 
Some_one said:
do you think it is doable for IMGs to match in community programs?
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It happens. Surgery of any kind is extremely competitive for IMGs however. I have a coresident who had a 260/260, top Decile in his class, research and excellent letters who applied to 180 places and only got 5 invites.

There is a charting outcomes for IMGs.

Even a DO with the same app profile is getting 30+ invites from that many applications
 
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DOVinciRobot said:
It happens. Surgery of any kind is extremely competitive for IMGs however. I have a coresident who had a 260/260, top Decile in his class, research and excellent letters who applied to 180 places and only got 5 invites.

There is a charting outcomes for IMGs.

Even a DO with the same app profile is getting 30+ invites from that many applications
Click to expand...
Damn... Do you know by chance how much research and clinical experiences he had or atleast what's the minimum we should get? I have heard that it is not difficult to match into a preliminary spot as an IMG and this can highly increase your chances of getting a categorical spot in the following year. How true is this? That is what gives me more motivation to go for it
 
Some_one said:
Damn... Do you know by chance how much research and clinical experiences he had or atleast what's the minimum we should get? I have heard that it is not difficult to match into a preliminary spot as an IMG and this can highly increase your chances of getting a categorical spot in the following year. How true is this? That is what gives me more motivation to go for it
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What school do you attend?
 
Some_one said:
I have heard that it is not difficult to match into a preliminary spot as an IMG
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True
Some_one said:
and this can highly increase your chances of getting a categorical spot in the following year.
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Not so true. Highly dependent on the program. Many prelim GS residents are unable to obtain a categorical spot. Some are able to do so.
 
NotAProgDirector said:
True

Not so true. Highly dependent on the program. Many prelim GS residents are unable to obtain a categorical spot. Some are able to do so.
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In your experience, what percentage of USMD prelims who want to do categorical end up finding a spot? How does this compare to IMGs and DOs?

In my opinion there should be more transparency about prelim outcomes because I feel like many programs give false hopes for 2 years of a dead end minimum wage job
 
voxveritatisetlucis said:
In your experience, what percentage of USMD prelims who want to do categorical end up finding a spot? How does this compare to IMGs and DOs?

In my opinion there should be more transparency about prelim outcomes because I feel like many programs give false hopes for 2 years of a dead end minimum wage job
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1 in 5

It’s similar across the board regardless of degree type
 
DOVinciRobot said:
1 in 5

It’s similar across the board regardless of degree type
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Much lower than expected. Do most programs at Dleast allow prelims to get exposure to a backup specialty of some sort so they can get LORs? Seems wrong to leave them hanging to dry

On the one hand, I get that the prelims sign up for the job and know what is expected before had but I guarantee every PD probably gives at least white lies about outcomes
 
voxveritatisetlucis said:
Much lower than expected. Do most programs at Dleast allow prelims to get exposure to a backup specialty of some sort so they can get LORs? Seems wrong to leave them hanging to dry

On the one hand, I get that the prelims sign up for the job and know what is expected before had but I guarantee every PD probably gives at least white lies about outcomes
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We give our prelims the opportunity to do a single elective rotation in the field of their choice if it’s something other than general surgery. Many programs don’t. It’s a job. You are also expected to use vacation time for interviews at most places.

Why would that be lower than expected? Prelims are competing for spots with fresh graduates and inherently less competitive, otherwise they would have matched the first time. Most prelims that get a spot do so at their home program, or by a connection built from their home program. Every so often there is the opportunity for the prelim to become a categorical 2, but that is rare and requires there to be an opening.
 
DOVinciRobot said:
We give our prelims the opportunity to do a single elective rotation in the field of their choice if it’s something other than general surgery. Many programs don’t. It’s a job. You are also expected to use vacation time for interviews at most places.

Why would that be lower than expected? Prelims are competing for spots with fresh graduates and inherently less competitive, otherwise they would have matched the first time. Most prelims that get a spot do so at their home program, or by a connection built from their home program. Every so often there is the opportunity for the prelim to become a categorical 2, but that is rare and requires there to be an opening.
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Thanks for the response, didn’t mean to come off as presumptive. I always thought the categorical attrition rate was upper single digits so I assumed that at least for PGY2 and PGY3 spots there wouldn’t be as much competition but I guess most places would probably rather go with a known commodity in one of their prelims.

I do wonder if more will fall through the cracks though and not match with the increase in signals basically putting a de facto limit on interview number
 
voxveritatisetlucis said:
Thanks for the response, didn’t mean to come off as presumptive. I always thought the categorical attrition rate was upper single digits so I assumed that at least for PGY2 and PGY3 spots there wouldn’t be as much competition but I guess most places would probably rather go with a known commodity in one of their prelims.

I do wonder if more will fall through the cracks though and not match with the increase in signals basically putting a de facto limit on interview number
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GS will continue to fill almost all their spots, regardless of signals. That isn’t going to change. There will be more not matching simply because the numbers of applicants continues to increase each year.

It has become harder to match outside your region now, with multiple years of virtual interviews a lot of programs have been taking their own or from the regional student pool. More programs are doing in person interviews this year so we will see how things shake out and if they go back to how it was pre covid. I suspect not.


Some programs will elect to not fill an empty 2nd or 3rd year slot.
 
DOVinciRobot said:
It happens. Surgery of any kind is extremely competitive for IMGs however. I have a coresident who had a 260/260, top Decile in his class, research and excellent letters who applied to 180 places and only got 5 invites.

There is a charting outcomes for IMGs.

Even a DO with the same app profile is getting 30+ invites from that many applications
Click to expand...
Do you think doing research in the US as a medical student has higher weight for Match process than doing research in my own country(of course of my speciality choice)? Is it actually worth doing a gap year in medical school to go do research in the US or just stick in my country and do research there and gradaute medical school on time, then go to US and do research felllowship for 1 year before applying to the actual match? Any suggestion please?
 
Also I think the chances of getting a Cat spot after a prelim surgery depends on how you got to the prelim spot. If you apply GS and don't get a cat spot and instead get a prelim, then your application the next year is going to be the same, except for the prelim. Although you would hope a prelim position might make you more competitive, it often doesn't. Again, depends upon where the prelim is.

If instead someone tries to match one of the surgical subs and doesn't get a spot, they might do better in a match the next year for GS -- as they would likely have been competitive for it the first time had they chosen to apply that way.

Although it's possible to get a PGY-2 in surgery after a PGY-1 prelim, the more common pathway seems to be matching to a PGY-1 again in a categorical program.
 
Some_one said:
Do you think doing research in the US as a medical student has higher weight for Match process than doing research in my own country(of course of my speciality choice)? Is it actually worth doing a gap year in medical school to go do research in the US or just stick in my country and do research there and gradaute medical school on time, then go to US and do research felllowship for 1 year before applying to the actual match? Any suggestion please?
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You really should be posting your question in it's own thread. You're not a DO and this has nothing to do with signals, and trying to answer your questions here is just confusing matters.

That said...

From your postings you're an IMG in Italy who is interested in coming to the US for general surgery. That's a rather uphill road and can be very competitive. From the recently released Charting Outcomes for IMG's:

1727386206318.png

So that's a 30% success rate for US citizens, and a 25% success rate for non-citizens. You can see the average exam scores so have some sense of what you would need (Step 1 is now pass/fail). Most notable there is the research -- huge difference especially for non-US IMG's. Whether US research is better than Italian is unclear -- although a strong LOR from an academic US physician is >>> than one from overseas, but if you're working with a world famous person in Italy that might be fine. You should expect several years of research to likely generate enough to be competitive. US clinical experience will be key -- and it won't be easy to get. You will want to apply for SubI's at US centers from your medical school through VSLO.

Only you can determine whether all this is worth it.
 
NotAProgDirector said:
You really should be posting your question in it's own thread. You're not a DO and this has nothing to do with signals, and trying to answer your questions here is just confusing matters.

That said...

From your postings you're an IMG in Italy who is interested in coming to the US for general surgery. That's a rather uphill road and can be very competitive. From the recently released Charting Outcomes for IMG's:

View attachment 392763
So that's a 30% success rate for US citizens, and a 25% success rate for non-citizens. You can see the average exam scores so have some sense of what you would need (Step 1 is now pass/fail). Most notable there is the research -- huge difference especially for non-US IMG's. Whether US research is better than Italian is unclear -- although a strong LOR from an academic US physician is >>> than one from overseas, but if you're working with a world famous person in Italy that might be fine. You should expect several years of research to likely generate enough to be competitive. US clinical experience will be key -- and it won't be easy to get. You will want to apply for SubI's at US centers from your medical school through VSLO.

Only you can determine whether all this is worth it.
Click to expand...
Sorry, you are right. I did not notice the thread was completely out of topic.

Thanks for providing the table. I understand it's very difficult but I fully believe it is worth the grind. I am just considering what is the best option to increase my chances as high as possible
Do you think volunteer has high weight? It seems like they do consider them from this table, somehow. Should i spend time in volunteering too? Or is it definitely better to use my time for research rather than try to do volunteering(as I have zero)?

Would you mind if i can private message you? If you have time to answer more specific questions.
 
orthoPA81 said:
That’s person is currently an M3. Take their advice with a grain of salt.
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Volunteering doesn’t matter for any specialties really. Sure, doing it is better than not doing it but it’s orders of magnitudes lower in importance than step, grades, research, connections etc.
 
Volunteering and leadership will contribute to you geting AOA and/or GHHS, which will give you a big boost in matching competitive specialties.
 
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