be MORE OPTIMISTIC......

[anesthesiarocks]

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I thought I was going to originally do anesthesia. Then last year became ill, had to take several months off after an operation and treatment, and had to complete many electives this year. Did a derm elective early on, thought it was awesome, then did another and really enjoyed it too...so decided to switch over.

My stats

Step1- 226
Step2- 227

gpa- probably top 1/3, but probably not top 1/4...not AOA

mspe comments on individual rotations- good, especially on derm electives. Nothing "oh my god" though. No negative comments.

research- presented a poster at a conference. nothing published in derm. presented another poster in anesthesiology as well.

Letters of rec- two from derm attendings, both good. But neither person would be described as a huge "name".

I applied to 68 programs, leaving out programs that are either in areas I simply wouldn't want to live in(ie nyc) and leaving out the obviously super competitive programs that I wouldn't have a great shot at(mayo, ucsf, yale, penn...you get the picture)

Got 10 interviews, mostly at programs that are probably considered "less desirable"(although in derm thats a silly phrase to use I know) due to location or because they have less research, and went to all of them. Thought I had an extremely good rapport with the pd and faculty at most every place.

Now I know it's still possible to get 10 interviews with those numbers and not match. But I'm pretty confident, and as you can see I don't have the 250/tons of research/AOA package that so many say you "have" to have. I was just a solid student with solid grades and solid(relative to all matches, not derm) scores.

Just trying to give hope to all the people in my situation, because the numbers say we DO have a good chance to match.

 

[Urticaria]

Dude, I love you. 🙂

Let us know when you match!

 

[Needsluck]

Good job!

 

[Doctor Bagel]

I thought you went on psych interviews last year? And had a 2.something gpa -- not sure how that's top 1/3 anywhere.

 

[dermathon]

I agree anesthesiarocks is a total fraud. Read the OP's post history. Here's an example.

just not that interested in going on interviews.....
Views: 1,947
Posted By anesthesiarocks

just not that interested in going on interviews.....

applying for psych and have pretty poor stats. Failed step 1 first time around. Passed with a good score second. Mostly B's on core rotations(a C in medicine...long story...and an A in psych and...

 

[asmallchild]

I agree anesthesiarocks is a total fraud. Read the OP's post history. Here's an example.

just not that interested in going on interviews.....
Views: 1,947
Posted By anesthesiarocks

just not that interested in going on interviews.....

applying for psych and have pretty poor stats. Failed step 1 first time around. Passed with a good score second. Mostly B's on core rotations(a C in medicine...long story...and an A in psych and...

uh oh

busted

 

[moinmoin]

Yeah, apparently he/she matched in psych last year as well. Now that's a well-trained individual...

 

[Fidicinal]

What the hell was the purpose of this, then? Paint me confused.

Is it just to entice unsuspecting students into applying for a specialty that they are not qualified for? I don't get it.

 

[dermE]

someone who used to want to do anesthesia, but applied for psychiatry (and matched?), who is now going for or pretending to go for derm?

come on anesthesiarocks, tell us your reasoning behind that post

 

[anesthesiarocks]

someone who used to want to do anesthesia, but applied for psychiatry (and matched?), who is now going for or pretending to go for derm?

come on anesthesiarocks, tell us your reasoning behind that post

haha...I was actually trolling(for a single post or so) the psych board just emphasizing how easy it was to do/get into psych.

I didn't like my psych rotation and iirc I posted that just after the rotation...but it worked at least as I cast the bait and the insecure fish bit🙂...never had any interest in doing psych. At that time I was 100% anesthesia.

the overriding theme of my story though with respect to derm though isn't that different from many though.(or different from what the stats indicate).

I mean *look* at the percentage of people with 220-230 type scores matching. They are MUCH higher than one would be led to believe on here. This is a skewed demographic(sdn I mean).

I mean we know a lot of derm applicants have 250-255+ scores. A *lot*. We also know the average is 240. Well put 2 and 2 together. If a lot of people have 255ish scores, and the average score that matches is 240....well......doesn't take a harvard phd to figure out that a good number of people in the 220's are getting interviews and matching....

I'll post my rol later...I dont want to do it before programs have the deadline to submit their list....

 

[SkinNerd]

'Trolling' the psych board and posting something fake to make a point that it is easy to get into psychiatry.... while it may have been intended as a joke, it comes off to me as someone who is arrogant. Granted, there are a lot of them in dermatology - look at all the academic rockstars in this field, they have reason to be arrogant - but it irritates me that someone would take such pleasure in doing that and then bragging about it. That is not the kind of person i would want to train with, and if I ever reach my goal of becoming an academic dermatologist, it is not the type of person I would want in my residency program.

Yes, dermatology is tough to get into, and something to be very proud of. I will be ecstatic to match anywhere.... ANYWHERE on my rank list. But it will not make me look down on other fields of medicine because it was 'easy' for them to get into their fields. We are all ultimately trying to take care of patients and advance medical knowledge, right? We should foster good camraderie with our colleagues in other valuable and important fields like psychiatry, rather than looking down our noses at them. This is part of what makes the rest of the medical community write off dermatologists as practicing 'fluffy' medicine.

I know I'm taking this too seriously, and probably sounding like a goodie-two-shoes, but as the match looms near, I find myself really rooting for modest, hard-working people who know how to be team players.

Good luck to all of you!

 

[anesthesiarocks]

'Trolling' the psych board and posting something fake to make a point that it is easy to get into psychiatry.... while it may have been intended as a joke, it comes off to me as someone who is arrogant.

no, it comes off as someone who doesn't take psych particularly seriously(oh god what should we do with someone in the icu with agitation!) and wanted to poke fun at all the people who were poor candidates and didn't want to do family or IM....that's all it was🙂

hell psychologists are already starting to gain rx rights anyways, and in ten years that will be pretty much done....so that whole field is on eggshells.....

again, my post was just to make people aware of the numbers. People think most psych programs have 235ish step1 cutoffs. This simply can't be right based on the numbers. If every program had a 235 cutoff, the average step1 score would be something like 255......sheeeesh.

Did my sub 230 step1 score get me an automatic reject at some programs based on a filter? Will since I only got 10 interviews out of 60+ Im sure it did......bfd. The point is a lot of programs who I didn't get filtered out of because of a step1 cutoff probably rejected me for other reasons. Thats fine too.......

but my story(and again I'm ranking 10 places but havent matched yet) is probably evidence that derm isn't as "tough" as sdners say it is......as long as you apply to the right programs and put on a good personality and look good at your interviews.........

I mean yeah if I wanted to do derm in southern or northern cali(which I don't...jesus) I probably would have no shot. Same for top programs in the northeast. But other places? hell yeah.....

 

[asmallchild]

I think this thread has run its course (and I still have my doubts about some of the posters here)

Moral of the story: It's a rough journey but it has been completed by a lot of people with varying numbers/scores/backgrounds. The decision to apply or not is best made with your dean, derm advisors, loved ones, etc... etc... And of course, always be optimistic 🙂

 

[N-Surge]

Let's play nice. 🙂