Criteria for ob/gyn interviews

[obbyjobby]

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I'm currently doing a year on a clinical research fellowship and I go back to school in July and graduate in 2007.

I've always wanted to do ob/gyn (my research has been in gyn endocrine) and I'm wondering where I should aim for my interviews? This sounds a little naive but I have no idea what my value is as an ob/gyn candidate.

I go to a top 20 med school but I am totally average there, average boards score, not AOA, nothing like that. I think I might stand out because I have a TON of extracurricular activities through medical school demonstrating my enthusiasm and commitment to women's health (produced the vagina monologues, organized take back the night, president of msfc, rape crisis counselor, dv counselor, year of gyn research etc) but I'm pessimistic about how much they care about anything besides boards scores and grades.

I know ob/gyn isn't the most competitive specialty out there but the really good academic programs are always competitive. I think I'm just paranoid that I'll match in the Caribbean or somewhere.

 

[DRMICKEY]

Personally, I think you'll be fine. The to-20 school should get you interviews at most, if not all, top programs. Then your research and passion for women's health should make you stand out. After going through this process and matching, I think most top programs would rather take someone from a top-10 school who has lesser board scores and may not be AOA than someone from an unranked school with stellar boards and AOA. Just my two cents though...

 

[dstMD]

obbyjobby i think you'll be fine. Just make sure to apply to more than just the top-10 programs because you never know what'll happen w/ the match. It looks like there were a lot of disappointed people this year based on previous threads.

I do want to respond to Dr. Mickey's comment because I know plenty of people from "unrated" medical schools who were interviewed by and matched at top programs because they were AOA or had top board scores. I don't think those things can be ignored regardless of what school you come from. I do believe most top programs would rather take someone who had top board scores from any school over someone who has lower scores from a top school everything else being equal. Board scores after all are the only real objective measure programs have.

Even w/ that said there are a lot of other things they take into account such as research. Of course, who you know always helps, too.

 

[Wednesday]

Obby,

You'll probably get the most accurate advice from someone in the ob/gyn department in your school. They will be able to give you advice tailored to your actual grades, scores, school connections, etc. Make sure you apply broadly (or as broadly as they advise you to) and don't rank too few programs (this can get you into trouble). Ob/gyn actually increased in competitiveness this year, but who knows what it will be like next year. Good luck!