CA residency programs

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fusionid

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Hey ya
Im planing my 4th year and I cant make up my mind what places to check out during rotations. I have my mind set in doing a rotation at UCSD most likely in ID because I would like to match there. However I am also interested in LA programs. Particularly the Tricampus UCLA and children's LA. That's where I need help. What is the difference between the 2 programs. I am a student at another UC and would like to be in southern cal for residency. I would like to live in LA or SD so Im thinking those are my top choices right now.

any info, any insight greatly appreciated. I dont think I can do 2 rotations in LA though, so the questions is as to where to do it.
 
This may a few steps removed from your question but may be helpful anyway..
When looking at programs to interview/rank I discovered that there were MANY ways to subdivide/categorize programs. Just within SoCal you can easily do this. University hospital (UCLA, UCSD) vs. stand-alone hosp (Children's Hosp of Orange County [CHOC], Children's Hosp of L.A. [CHLA]).
Lg vs. small, Hospital-intensive vs. balanced w/ outpatient, etc.
The ONE divide that became important for my personal top 2 vs. rest was
Multi-site vs. single-site trainining: I approach residency with the following philosophy: I should be exposed to as much in as many different circumstances in as many different settings as possible. Hence, multi-site places moved to the top (UCSF, UCLA).

THough I didn't choose to apply to CHLA, what I do know of it that makes it a different experience from UCLA is being a stand-alone, hospital-intensive, single-site residency program.

At first I thought it was stand-alone, then at some point realized it's affiliated with USC

best wishes. Either place should be a great one to find a letter-writer and see some Peds in action down in SoCal. Where you coming from (which UC?)

fusionid said:
Hey ya
Im planing my 4th year and I cant make up my mind what places to check out during rotations. I have my mind set in doing a rotation at UCSD most likely in ID because I would like to match there. However I am also interested in LA programs. Particularly the Tricampus UCLA and children's LA. That's where I need help. What is the difference between the 2 programs. I am a student at another UC and would like to be in southern cal for residency. I would like to live in LA or SD so Im thinking those are my top choices right now.

any info, any insight greatly appreciated. I dont think I can do 2 rotations in LA though, so the questions is as to where to do it.
 
It all depends on how competitive you are as an applicant. Compared to several other Cali programs (CHLA, UCLA, UCSF, Stanford, CH Oakland) UCSD is not very hard to get into. If you are a fairly strong applicant and doing an away elective to try and get yourself into a program, I would spend my time doing the more competitive programs, since you will likely get in to UCSD without needing to do an away elective. If you are borderline for the average to slightly above-average programs (like UCSD) then it would be a good idea to rotate at UCSD then.

But keep in mind that away electives are a chance for you to see the program as well. So if you are trying to decide between an LA program and UCSD, then it would be good to rotate at both. I rotated at the two programs at between I thought I would have the hardest time deciding. After seeing both programs, I ranked one number one and the other way down the list. If I ranked based on the interview day alone, it would not have been such an easy decision.
 
wow thanks to everyone for your responses. I really appreciate it.
How do I know how strong of an applicant I am?
I got 222 on step one. No peds honors. Will have research completed by graduation and future name publication. Good LOR (hopefully)
 
fusionid said:
wow thanks to everyone for your responses. I really appreciate it.
How do I know how strong of an applicant I am?
I got 222 on step one. No peds honors. Will have research completed by graduation and future name publication. Good LOR (hopefully)

It's hard to say, did you honor anything third year? If you ABSOLUTELY want to be in California, consider applying to a lot of programs, california programs (especially Stanford, Oakland, UCSF, UCLA) tend to be more competitive. On the bright side there are alot of other good california programs out there like UCSD, Harbor-UCLA, CHOC, UCI, Loma Linda, etc.
 
fusionid said:
wow thanks to everyone for your responses. I really appreciate it.
How do I know how strong of an applicant I am?

You don't. My story is that I didn't honor medicine nor peds, yet matched in my #2 choice for Med/Peds at a place I didn't rotate at.

Why can't you do two places in Los Angeles?
 
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