Didn't Match, Now what

[AnesNavy]

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So I have a few questions that I've been pondering these past few weeks. Yeah, I'm a bit late, but I thought I had a good plan but now I'm starting to doubt myself. Here's my situation. I'm a citizen and a U.S. grad. I applied for Anesthesiology and some Prelim and Transitional programs. I got 13 anes interviews, 2 prelim, and 1 transitional. Mind you, I applied to over 80 programs. Here's why:

Step 1: 203
Step 2 CK: 226
Step 2 CS: PASS

In addition to my low Step 1 score, my application was tainted with a failing NMBE Internal Medicine Board exam (passed on 2nd attempt), a failed OSCE (remediated and put in my Dean's letter), and an unprofessionalism (which was put in my Dean's letter).

Whew! Now, here's the thing....I think I was able to get those interviews because they had not viewed my Dean's letter yet. This time around, I'm not sure, maybe they will be able to see my Dean's letter before they offer me an interview. So basically, my interviews were spent discussing all the blemishes in my record. Needless to say, I didn't Match. I was lucky enough to Scramble into a Prelim Surgery position.

There's not much you can do to beef up your application in a few months, especially in my situation. My plan was to take Step 3 early and do my best as an intern and apply again inside and outside the Match for Anesthesiology. I don't want to put too much info on here, but I did a lot of anesthesia rotations (home and away), founded an interest group in anesthesia at my med school, and attended national conferences. I have been sitting in on cases since college and had an Anesthesiologist as my mentor. Basically, I only considered anesthesiology and nothing else. Now, I'm starting to feel like there's no hope for me and I should look elsewhere.

Any advice, whether good or bad is appreciated. Thanks in advance!

 

[lvspro]

So I have a few questions that I've been pondering these past few weeks. Yeah, I'm a bit late, but I thought I had a good plan but now I'm starting to doubt myself. Here's my situation. I'm a citizen and a U.S. grad. I applied for Anesthesiology and some Prelim and Transitional programs. I got 13 anes interviews, 2 prelim, and 1 transitional. Mind you, I applied to over 80 programs. Here's why:

Step 1: 203
Step 2: 226
Step 2 CS: PASS

In addition to my low Step 1 score, my application was tainted with a failing NMBE Internal Medicine Board exam (passed on 2nd attempt), a failed OSCE (remediated and put in my Dean's letter), and an unprofessionalism (which was put in my Dean's letter).

Whew! Now, here's the thing....I think I was able to get those interviews because they had not viewed my Dean's letter yet. This time around, I'm not sure, maybe they will be able to see my Dean's letter before they offer me an interview. So basically, my interviews were spent discussing all the blemishes in my record. Needless to say, I didn't Match. I was lucky enough to Scramble into a Prelim Surgery position.

There's not much you can do to beef up your application in a few months, especially in my situation. My plan was to take Step 3 early and do my best as an intern and apply again inside and outside the Match for Anesthesiology. I don't want to put too much info on here, but I did a lot of anesthesia rotations (home and away), founded an interest group in anesthesia at my med school, and attended national conferences. I have been sitting in on cases since college and had an Anesthesiologist as my mentor. Basically, I only considered anesthesiology and nothing else. Now, I'm starting to feel like there's no hope for me and I should look elsewhere.

Any advice, whether good or bad is appreciated. Thanks in advance!

The thing about residency is that you need to be able to pass exams (ie study like crazy), work hard, and prolly the most important thing is to be able to get along with everyone. I'm guessing that the unprofessionalism thing may be your biggest hindrance, but failed exams don't help. Read JPP's posts about BOW YOUR HEAD to get an idea of what I'm saying here. You may need to do an intern yr in something and get stellar evals, great scores in that specialties ITE, and develop good relationships with an anesthesia dept head.
I'll be frank with you, all our residents are involved in the selection of new residents, and a crappy personality gets your application drop-kicked to the curb. I would have trouble endorsing someone with above issues unless a more recent demonstration of maturity existed.
Hope this helps, and GL dood... applying to residency is no picnic.

 

[Monty Python]

Are you USUHS at Bethesda, or Navy HPSP? If so, and you're applying for a military residency, the back-door communication channel amongst PDs at military hospitals is usually very efficient (to black ball you). Also let's not forget the Navy's nasty little secret: they really want (ie, need) you to serve as a GMO for three years after internship. THEN they might consider your residency application.

AnesNavy If you're military, perhaps you'll get helpful ideas on the military forum: http://forums.studentdoctor.net/forumdisplay.php?f=72

 

[AnesNavy]

Nope, I have no affiliation with the military whatsoever. I was considering it at the time, hense my name. Also, to address the unprofessionalism, it has nothing to do with my interpersonal relationships. It was an incident that took place my freshman year, outside of med school. My Dean's letter is pretty effective in showing I get along well with my peers and patients alike.

I appreciate the comments I got so far, but what specifically would you recommend I do besides getting good recommendations and evals my intern year. Since I will be starting a Prelim Surgery internship in a few days, do you think it would be in my best interest to register and take Step 3 early with a goal to score at least a 230. I also considered re-writing my PS to address my unprofessionalism because the reaction I recieved during interviews when I told PDs the story behind it, was that they didn't understand why I was reprimanded for my actions and thought it would be something much worse given the vague statement in my Dean's letter.

Again, any comments are appreciated.

 

[Taurus]

It's going to be difficult to get into anesthesia with your school and test record. You also don't have much time to apply while doing a prelim surg year. I recommend adding IM, FM, peds, psych, etc programs as fall back plan.

 

[Arch Guillotti]

Closing, duplicate thread. Feel free to contribute to the open one in general residency forums.