board scores and specialty

[ribcrackindoc]

I'm a D.O. student in the Air Force who just scored 542 (69th %) on Step 1 of COMLEX. Does anyone know which specialties are an option for me? I mean, with this score have I limited myself? Is ortho or rads still a possibility or should I look at less competitive fields? Thanks in advace for any help.

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[thenavysurgeon]

can you retake your boards?

you've got a couple of strikes against you...

rads and ortho remain competitive..

frankly...DO surgeons are still ear-maked as 'questionable' by some medical boards, and a PD may discard your application based on that alone.

a community based residency program might not, less competitive, but the big centers will not look at you...

your board scores should be at least 85%tile for a competetive residency application...why do you think you scored where you did?

 

[UltimateDO]

I'm a D.O. student in the Air Force who just scored 542 (69th %) on Step 1 of COMLEX. Does anyone know which specialties are an option for me? I mean, with this score have I limited myself? Is ortho or rads still a possibility or should I look at less competitive fields? Thanks in advace for any help.

It all depends on who wants what out of your recruiting class. I am sure the AF is a little different than the Army but a Temple Army HPSP student matched ortho this past year with bottom quartile boards and a not so good class rank. Granted this is the exception but it shows the sensitivity of the HPSP match to a small population size not always matching the student population as a whole.

 

[thenavysurgeon]

matched to what program?

 

[bonefixr]

I don't know much about the military and the match, but this is what I've heard regarding the Navy and ortho... If you do a military residency you are most likely to do a GMO tour after your internship year for 2-3 years. After that, you THEN apply for the ortho spot. I am assuming that if you did OK on boards and then did a great job as a GMO then you would have a shot.