Chance to match Ophtho and recommendations on what to do

[Dream of the Endless]

Thank you for your help!

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[NotAProgDirector]

You've basically already answered your own question:

1. Build relationships with your home school Opthal program.
2. More opthal rotations. consider away rotations -- this is a good question to ask the PD / mentors
3. Step 2
4. Honest feedback from mentors.

Your weakest piece may be your clinical performance, depending upon how many people get H/HP/P at your school. 1H / 3HP / 1P is probably the middle of the class. Your school can probably benchmark you against prior ophthal applicants and tell you what you need to consider.

 

[Dream of the Endless]

You've basically already answered your own question:

1. Build relationships with your home school Opthal program.
2. More opthal rotations. consider away rotations -- this is a good question to ask the PD / mentors
3. Step 2
4. Honest feedback from mentors.

Your weakest piece may be your clinical performance, depending upon how many people get H/HP/P at your school. 1H / 3HP / 1P is probably the middle of the class. Your school can probably benchmark you against prior ophthal applicants and tell you what you need to consider.

You're right, definitely feel like my clinical performance has been subpar. 2 of my HPs were 1% off from H. It's an excuse/irrelevant, but it's still frustrating to know you were right there lol. I'm actively trying to make some adjustments to stick a few Hs on my transcript between now and then.

Step 2: Obviously, higher is always better but I do better with realistic targeted numbers. I'm shooting for 255+ which I think I'll get my app looked at and not immediately filtered. With my current profile, should I aim higher?

Thanks for the feedback, I appreciate it. Since time is limited, I wanted to make sure I 1) Hit the ground running by taking the right initial steps + 2) Having some pre-feedback and targeted questions/thoughts for the meetings to make the most of em.' I'll be sure to bring these up with them.

 

[i-doctor]

Yes you have a decent shot, but not at a top tier residency program. I too was in the middle of my class at a Top 20, no ophtho research, and matched at a low-tier ophthalmology residency. (Every residency position is a piece of gold). You can do it. I don’t think you need a gap year. You just need to be honest….you were interested in another field (thus the research in that area) until your ophtho rotation, which blew you away, and since then you are laser-focused on ophtho. The away rotations will be important, as well as Step 2.
It’s worth it. Eye surgery—especially cataract surgery —is amazingly fun to do even after many years in practice!

 

[Dream of the Endless]

Yes you have a decent shot, but not at a top tier residency program. I too was in the middle of my class at a Top 20, no ophtho research, and matched at a low-tier ophthalmology residency. (Every residency position is a piece of gold). You can do it. I don’t think you need a gap year. You just need to be honest….you were interested in another field (thus the research in that area) until your ophtho rotation, which blew you away, and since then you are laser-focused on ophtho. The away rotations will be important, as well as Step 2.
It’s worth it. Eye surgery—especially cataract surgery —is amazingly fun to do even after many years in practice!

Thank you for the feedback.

Even if I had the luxury of tier, being closer to family to help with raising the expected little ones takes precedence. They're open to moving, but there are limited places they'd be willing/able to go for years of their life. Besides, just matching would be a blessing lol.

Just started looking them up, but there seems to be a lot of away scholarships for URMs in the field, so I'll likely be applying to a few depending on the results of the meeting. Thank you for sharing your experience, I'm hopeful it works out that way for me!

 

[Dream of the Endless]

Thank you for the help!

 

[medschoolaspirant]

Your credential is ditto same as mine. I have 258 step 2. Little better then You. I have IM- P and Ped- HP. Rsst all H. I have 8 papers published. 3 Ophtho. 10+ poster presentations. So I will say, i have a little better research. Leadesrhip credential a few In under grad and med school. Part of admissions committee. I have no merit scholarship. Where you have a leg up. I am asian male. Where you have a leg up (I guess). I am applying dual app. ophtho and IM. I feel bullish about it. Go for it my friend. We will make somewhere.

 

[eyeeye_captain]

OP, I think you’re pretty good even though it’s a relatively average app. Not a tremendous amount of research, but sounds like there’s some quality there. Coming out of a T20 with a good department, if your letters are good and you interview well, you should probably match, but there’s never a guarantee. There are plenty of programs that respect hard workers, which you clearly are with multiple jobs, a merit scholarship, and multiple research projects in 6 months. You might have to be geographically flexible, but it’s 4 years. I’ve tried to get a thread going in the ophtho forum on middle tier spots, might be helpful in terms of places to apply.

Sad aside: I’m pretty sure none of my coresidents had held a job prior to residency. I was definitely the only one who had done manual labor.

 

[Ogichi]

Been lurking for a minute now but I saw this and had to say something since I feel we're cut from the same cloth with similar field interest. Seen worse apps match, think you should shoot your shot especially if you can interview well. As others mentioned think you're somewhere around the middle of the pack at best.

You've done what you've needed to do, namely: seeking feedback, linking up with mentors and networking, got some Ophthal-specific research under your belt, and you've considered other fields in case it doesn't work out. Could consider a gap year to bolster your research, and be open demographically. Otherwise, all that's left is to stay positive and hope for the best man.

Good luck, feel free to DM me man