Checklist for top residency

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natler

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Everyone knows the checklist for getting into a top med school (high gpa and mcat, shadowing, volunteering, research, etc.). What's on the list for getting into a top residency program? High grades and board schools, good recommendations, and research (ideally with publications) are obvious, but what else is there? Volunteering? Involvement in student groups? International work? Leadership? Etc?
 
natler said:
Everyone knows the checklist for getting into a top med school (high gpa and mcat, shadowing, volunteering, research, etc.). What's on the list for getting into a top residency program? High grades and board schools, good recommendations, and research (ideally with publications) are obvious, but what else is there? Volunteering? Involvement in student groups? International work? Leadership? Etc?
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I think the checklist for residency is pretty well known too, and frequently discussed if you do a search of existing threads.

It's basically
-Clinical grades
-Step I & II
-AOA (*largely tied to clinical grades)
-LORS (from well known people in the field you're applying to)
-Publications
-Research

Then about a million miles down the totem pole of importance:
-preclinical grades
-Other CV crap (leadership, student groups, volunteering)
 
natler said:
Everyone knows the checklist for getting into a top med school (high gpa and mcat, shadowing, volunteering, research, etc.). What's on the list for getting into a top residency program? High grades and board schools, good recommendations, and research (ideally with publications) are obvious, but what else is there? Volunteering? Involvement in student groups? International work? Leadership? Etc?
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When it comes to "top" residency programs, every single applicant will have great board scores, research, perfect grades, and glowing LORs. After that, it's about who you know (assuming you have a good personality at the interview).
 
VisionaryTics said:
When it comes to "top" residency programs, every single applicant will have great board scores, research, perfect grades, and glowing LORs. After that, it's about who you know (assuming you have a good personality at the interview).
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There are still tiers of awesomeness.

We interview maybe 60-75 applicants a year, but the top 10-20 compared to the other 50 are night and day. The interview and stuff like who you know can certainly help or hurt, but their CV alone is pretty highly predictive of where they will end up on the rank list.
 
Absolutely agreed. Top programs, especially in competitive fields, have few spots and plenty of applicants with perfect scores and grades -- those are the doorway to an interview -- but it's the intangibles and personality at the interview that cinch the deal.

Past networking is also very important, both in terms of meeting faculty at top programs and networking with your home program so people will make phone calls on your behalf. It's not just doing research, but doing multiple first author pubs on interesting topics that actually contribute something valuable to the field. It also helps to have other interesting things from your own background -- fighter pilot, pro athlete, Olympian, etc. None of these are absolute requirements and obviously nobody can have all of these, but they are examples of ways to set yourself apart from the pack.
 
What LORs are expected? I know a Dean's letter and a letter from a PI are essential, but do med students get LORs from professors and anyone else?
 
natler said:
What LORs are expected? I know a Dean's letter and a letter from a PI are essential, but do med students get LORs from professors and anyone else?
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Clinical faculty in your chosen specialty that you rotate with 3rd+4th year.
 
Do PIs teach you how to write papers? I've done research before but have never published anything, and I feel like I wouldn't even know where to start on writing one.
 
natler said:
Do PIs teach you how to write papers? I've done research before but have never published anything, and I feel like I wouldn't even know where to start on writing one.
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Mine gave me pointers on the intro and discussion, other than that I did what I could by reading other papers and using them as guides for formatting and the types of content put in each section
 
southernIM said:
I think the checklist for residency is pretty well known too, and frequently discussed if you do a search of existing threads.

It's basically
-Clinical grades
-Step I & II
-AOA (*largely tied to clinical grades)
-LORS (from well known people in the field you're applying to)
-Publications
-Research

Then about a million miles down the totem pole of importance:
-preclinical grades
-Other CV crap (leadership, student groups, volunteering)
Click to expand...

I lol so hard at my classmates that think all that BS and being in this and that group with xyz position is going to be significant on their residency app. Just a waste of time unless it's something you're passionate about.
 
PL198 said:
I lol so hard at my classmates that think all that BS and being in this and that group with xyz position is going to be significant on their residency app. Just a waste of time unless it's something you're passionate about.
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Depends what you are actually doing. They want to see something of substance. Just being president of the ENT Interest Group won't be enough. Problem is med students aren't do **** of actual substance. Doing research proves something being "officer" doesn't.
 
natler said:
Everyone knows the checklist for getting into a top med school (high gpa and mcat, shadowing, volunteering, research, etc.). What's on the list for getting into a top residency program? High grades and board schools, good recommendations, and research (ideally with publications) are obvious, but what else is there? Volunteering? Involvement in student groups? International work? Leadership? Etc?
Click to expand...
You forget one thing! No DO degree...Lol
 
natler said:
What LORs are expected? I know a Dean's letter and a letter from a PI are essential, but do med students get LORs from professors and anyone else?
Click to expand...

Dean's letter is just something every school sends out; it is not a LOR.
 
natler said:
Do PIs teach you how to write papers? I've done research before but have never published anything, and I feel like I wouldn't even know where to start on writing one.
Click to expand...

Depends. A good research mentor should help you do this and you should clearly communicate both your lack of experience and your desire to learn how to do it. There are also PIs who are less involved and focused more on the admin part of running a lab; these people may not have the time or willingness to help a student learn. I would ask around at your school -- faculty and other students will know who's good at doing this.

That said, it goes much faster if you put in the effort to learn. There are many books on the topic; ask researchers at your school which ones they'd recommend. You should also be reading papers all the time, especially from the field you'll be doing research in. Eventually, you'll need to just write a paper and have your mentor correct it. You'll learn a lot through this process, and once you submit for publication you'll learn more from the reviewer comments and rewriting the paper/writing the rebuttal letter.

Like you, I walked in the door with zero experience -- I was definitely a lot more artist than scientist! I found a good mentor early, and then we just started doing projects. I started presenting at national meetings and writing manuscripts. The first paper took a lot longer to get through than I thought it would, but every paper since then has gotten easier. I think the first paper took almost 2 years! I was definitely the limiting factor and now the subsequent papers have gone faster. I learn new things about the writing process from every paper I write. Now as a fourth year I have multiple first author papers -- good papers that I feel make a real contribution to the field and which I know from correspondence are already impacting patient care.

It's been a ton of work going from nothing to where I am now, and there's still a long way to go. The KEY is finding good mentors.
 
DermViser said:
Depends what you are actually doing. They want to see something of substance. Just being president of the ENT Interest Group won't be enough. Problem is med students aren't do **** of actual substance. Doing research proves something being "officer" doesn't.
Click to expand...

Yeah I'm sure research is important and I consider that a whole other group of achievements or whatever. It's just funny about people I know that are officers in like 6 clubs and you know they give 0 sh*ts about any of them. It really pisses me off when we have people in the "student government" or whatever and you ask them to do something well within the scope of their position that would take them one email and instead of doing it, they half-*ss it and BS you. It's like dude you took the job, you can spend 5 minutes doing it.
 
PL198 said:
Yeah I'm sure research is important and I consider that a whole other group of achievements or whatever. It's just funny about people I know that are officers in like 6 clubs and you know they give 0 sh*ts about any of them. It really pisses me off when we have people in the "student government" or whatever and you ask them to do something well within the scope of their position that would take them one email and instead of doing it, they half-*ss it and BS you. It's like dude you took the job, you can spend 5 minutes doing it.
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That's bc they are admin kiss-butt positions to med school admin deans. They definitely aren't to give med students an actual "voice" and say in their education.
 
DermViser said:
That's bc they are admin kiss-butt positions to med school admin deans. They definitely aren't to give med students an actual "voice" and say in their education.
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Yes. Our people in those positions seem to think that office of student affairs is the only people they can talk to, to ask a question. We had a question about tuition and instead of emailing someone that could actually give us an answer, they asked student affairs, who forwarded a generic email in response. Complete idiots.
 
PL198 said:
Yes. Our people in those positions seem to think that office of student affairs is the only people they can talk to, to ask a question. We had a question about tuition and instead of emailing someone that could actually give us an answer, they asked student affairs, who forwarded a generic email in response. Complete idiots.
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That or they did want to tick anyone off so they went thru Student Affairs, rather than go straight to the source.
 
DermViser said:
That or they did want to tick anyone off so they went thru Student Affairs, rather than go straight to the source.
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so now they're stupid and their sissies, great

side note: So I know the rules are that schools can't require attendance at basic science lectures and thus do the whole BS in class quiz thing but shouldn't they be required to provide that quiz to people online or another means instead of going to class? I don't see why they'd make that rule and then have it so easily be sidestepped.
 
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PL198 said:
so now they're stupid and their sissies, great

side note: So I know the rules are that schools can't require attendance at basic science lectures and thus do the whole BS in class quiz thing but shouldn't they be required to provide that quiz to people online or another means instead of going to class? I don't see why they'd make that rule and then have it so easily be sidestepped.
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I don't think that's a "rule" per say. A med school can decide any attendance policy it sees fit. It can decide that you must attend every basic science lecture if it wants to.
https://www.aamc.org/download/268838/data/lecture_video_recording_and_attendance.pdf

I like how the Southern schools (UAB) are hard-***es about attendance.
 
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joker2400 said:
Clinical faculty in your chosen specialty that you rotate with 3rd+4th year.
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How do you get a recommendation from clinical faculty in a specialties like ortho/derm/plastic if those aren't part of the general rotations?
 
natler said:
How do you get a recommendation from clinical faculty in a specialties like ortho/derm/plastic if those aren't part of the general rotations?
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You do an elective in them usually in your MS-4 year. There are schools that have elective time in their MS-3 year either due to space being made or due to a shortened preclinical curriculum.
 
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