Board Exams and Residency Placement

[femme]

How do students generally fare in terms of residency placement and board exams from different schools?

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[Blue Scrub]

good question

 

[aumed22]

I'm curious as well.

 

[Shredder]

i thought the intuitive answer is that it goes for the most part by rankings. for a definitive answer you could check some other forums.

 

[Phil Anthropist]

You can get a relative idea by looking at residency match lists. However, take the results with a grain of salt. A lot of information does not appear on residency match lists. For example, you can't tell if students got one of their top three choices or how many were trying to get into a certain specialty. You can't tell whether location was a highly significant factor in an individual's ranking of residency programs. You can get an overall idea, nothing more.

Match Day is on the 17th, so you'll probably see a lot of talk on the Allo forum later this week.

US News Rankings might give you an idea, but I wouldn't follow it too closely. There are a lot of unranked schools that fare VERY well (e.g., Tulane). A lot of the US News criteria has little or nothing to do with residency placement (e.g., NIH research grants).

Important points:

"Prestigious" medical school doesn't necessarily mean "prestigious" or excellent residency program. It's not uncommon for lesser known schools to have residency programs that are considered among the best. For example, the ENT and Ophthalmology programs at the University of Iowa are considered some of the best in the country and NYU-Rusk's PM&R program is also considered better than the programs offered at many of the "more prestigious" universities.

The number of placements doesn't tell anything about the quality of the placements.

Here's the thread from last year: http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=110559

 

[klubguts]

You may be able to find out from your med school where people are going for residency(i know, after the fact). I'm fixin' to graduate in two months and just finished applying, and all i can tell you is that kicking a$$ on step 1 is critical for landing residency interviews. I remember (way back) that med schools don't usually say much about their avg. step 1 scores or where their students end up for residency during the interview season, so this is a toughie to answer until you start at the school. It seems the "rankings" are at least in part based on research $$, so i'm not conviced that students at a highly ranked school necessarily outperform the lower ranked schools on the boards or with regard to residency placement (although this has been frequently debated on many SDN forums). agree with phil antrophist, it is quality >> quantity. Good luck y'all.

 

[Haybrant]

It seems the "rankings" are at least in part based on research $$, so i'm not conviced that students at a highly ranked school necessarily outperform the lower ranked schools on the boards or with regard to residency placement .

but why is it then that these top schools have good residency match lists; perhaps im not sure what makes a good list; everyone goes about claiming they have a good match list. How does one separate the men from the boys of residency match lists?

 

[pekq]

Higher exam score generally equates to more interviews and thus more opportunities to match at competitive residencies.

A lot of school will say they have a great match list (by their standards which can be quite low). You can basically tally up number of competitive residencies (field and hospital) then take into account # of students and get a rough idea.

 

[drguy22]

good question

well..we gots nothin to worry bout