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Alright, not sure if anyone’s gonna find this helpful but Ive gotten a few messages about applying ortho as a DO so I figured I’d just do a write up for it. I also dual applied radiology as a backup so I’ll include that info too. Sorry if the grammar/formatting here is terrible, I used talk to text for all this on my phone lol.
TLDR: Applying ortho is hard
Basic sats:
Step 1: 250
Step 2: 247
Comlex 1: 581
Comlex 2: 749
Research:
2 pubs, 3 posters, 1 abstract
LOR:
4 Ortho, 2 from PD’s
For Rads: 1 GS, 1 DR, 1 IM
Apps:
~35 ortho
~110DR
40 TY
10 prelim Surgery
7 ortho audition
Interview invites:
7 ortho
9 DR
10 TY (went on 6)
2 prelim GS (canceled both)
Max bench: 210
Everything ortho:
So things I think are import are scores, research and you audition rotation.
DO ortho programs still care about your comlex scores, my level 2 score was brought up in almost every ortho interview. But you absolutely still need to take step 1 and step 2.
As for research it’s important you get you name on something. Get on at least 1 real publication. And you can present whatever other research you work on at conferences or even your schools research day. Just have something. My research was brought up in almost all interviews but it was never a major talking point.
Your audition rotation is most important and is really going to be the major deciding factor. Scores, research, etc. really just get you in the door for an audition. A great audition can make up for a less than stellar app. With that said if you are well below average applicant a great rotation might not be enough, so you need to be honest with yourself about your application.
Rotating at MD programs:
A very common question I get is did I audition at any MD programs, and should you audition at any MD programs. I didn’t audition at any MD programs, it just wasn’t worth it for me. I know people who auditioned at one MD program, and even some who auditioned in multiple MD programs. Some of them matched some of them didn’t, I didn’t know anybody personally who matched at an MD program this year but I know there were a few. The point is they were like 120 DO’s that matched Ortho this year out of approximately 300 applying, and maybe 2 to 5 DO’s matched at MD programs. You need to be honest with yourself and think are you really going to be in the 1% of DO applicants that matches at an MD program? From pretty much every DO I’ve spoken to that is at an MD program they all had some sort of very strong connection to that program, not always, some of them just happen to match an MD program. But the vast majority that I spoke to had strong connections. Strong connections being like they worked with that program for years before medical school, or they did research year there, or they have a close family member that is high-ranking in that program. Those all qualify as strong connections. Just to knowing someone at the program, or haven’t gone there for undergrad, or it even just being your hometown in my opinion is really not enough to justify rotating an MD program. I know applicants with amazing applications, super high board scores, tons of research, etc. that rotated at a bunch of MD programs and ended up not matching. And from the people I spoke to that rotated at both MD and DO programs they say there’s not a huge difference between them, unless of course you’re set on going into academic orthopedics but doing that as a DO is nearly impossible. Point is, the majority of people that apply ortho every year are not going to match, so I recommend you play it as “safe” as you can and just rotate at former DO programs.
How to excel on your ortho audition rotation:
First and biggest thing is please don’t be annoying. I know this seems like common knowledge but you’d be surprised by how many students just never stop talking, or never stop making jokes that aren’t funny, or anything like that. Another thing is when you’re in the OR that’s probably not the best time to try and strike up a conversation with the resident because they’re really busy and focused. If you have a question that you absolutely cannot wait to ask until after the case just try and make it a quick question.
Know how to read basic X-rays. There is some newer website that just came out that gives a really good explanation for how to read x-rays but I can’t remember what it was so hopefully someone can post in the comments and I’ll update it here.
Edit: here’s that website
www.nailfractureconference.com
Course includes 137 fracture radiographs with 190 associated follow-up questions and 143 multiple choice questions
There are also a bunch of YouTube videos that talk about the basics of how to read an x-ray. I would also know the most common fracture classifications, like garden classification Schatzker’s, neer, Gartland, Monteggia, Galeazzi, Evans, Lauge Hansen, Vancouver, Salter-Harris, Gustilo, etc. Pretty much everything Ortho you need can be found on Orthobullets website or in pocket pimped Ortho. Pocket pimped will cover pretty much every pimp question you will get on your audition rotations. I’ll be honest I did not memorize it by any means, but as you go through your rotations you’ll see that you’re really gonna get ask the same questions over and over again and later in the audition season, like months 4 to 6, you’ll start getting more advanced questions and not just reading basic fractures and classifying them. You’ll start to be asked some surgical approaches, how would you handle this, triage these patients in the ED, and stuff like that. But at that point you should be pretty good with most of that stuff. There is also an anki deck made from pocket pimped that’s awesome if you can get it. I would ask the residents at you home program for it and any current 4th years applying ortho at your school. And if you have it don’t be that gunner who doesn’t share it lol. I shared my stuff with other students on rotations and they also gave me some great stuff.
There’s a lot other basic stuff that honestly you’ll pick up pretty quick, but things like always being helpful or showing up on time are really important. When you first get into the OR help with patient positioning, help prep the patient, introduce yourself to the whole team, write your name on the board. I always introduce myself to the OR nurse and scrub tech, make sure you pull your gloves. Just basic stuff like that really goes along way.
If you’re pre-rounding or rounding in the morning either know where the supplies are kept on each floor, or try and keep some basic stuff on you for dressing changes because that’s gonna be what’s most important while rounding.
Which program you go to will be different but for the most part you’ll be pimped during education/fracture conference or in the OR. I would definitely read up on whatever is being presented that week ahead of time, even if you just look through Orthobullets real fast in the morning before hand, just don’t go in the education completely blind on the topics being presented. When your pimped in the OR the majority of your questions will just be anatomy, so know your MSK anatomy of the upper and lower extremities. The majority the cases you’ll be in will be trauma followed by joints. So the majority of your questions will be on those. But I scrubbed literally every subspecialty of ortho except oncology during my rotations so just read up ahead of time on the cases or even between cases if you have too.
Some rotations you’re on you might end up doing a lot of clinic. For the most part you’ll get to do the most in joints clinic. Usually going in interviewing the patient then presenting to the attending. But it’s really program specific some programs I would literally just shadow a resident or attending in clinic and other programs I would get a full history, full plan, chart, present to the attending and do injections and whatever. Clinic usually becomes pretty repetitive overtime, especially if it’s joints so you’ll get the hang of it pretty quick.
I would definitely try and pick your first to Ortho Audition Rotation’s pretty carefully. Try and read as many reviews about them as you can and see which programs let you work with the PD the most or a PD or even an individual attending the most, because you’re gonna want to get letters of recommendation from your first two rotations. I ended up getting two letters of recommendation from my third year ortho rotations and then the PD’s from my first and second auditions also wrote me letters. If you have any sort of connection to a program it’s important to use that the best you can. Even with a perfect application and connections it still takes a bit of luck to match just because of the number of DO’s applying ortho nowadays.
Ortho interviews:
A lot of DO programs don’t release interviews on universal offer day, I think I only got two of my seven ortho interviews on that day so don’t worry about that. Ortho interviews can be pretty intense. But nothing crazy. Pretty much all of my interviews consisted of three rooms. One with just myself and the PD, one with a couple residents and one or two attending’s, and then one room with a couple residents and one or two attending’s but in this room they would pull up x-rays and have you read them. They would then pimp you on surgical approaches, triaging patients, classifying fractures, why do we use this fracture classification, and stuff like that. Only one of my interviews was in person, the rest were on zoom.
My radiology application:
This sections a lot smaller because applying radiology is not nearly as difficult as applying ortho. But I had completely different letters for radiology and a completely different personal statement. In one of my radiology interviews the PD said to me “hey it looks like your application is really geared towards orthopedics what’s up with that?” I never recommend lying but honestly in this situation I wasn’t gonna tell them that I was applying rads as a backup so I just said I was really interested in orthopedics at first but I decided to switching to radiology. I’m not recommending you lie but I feel like if I would’ve told them I was applying to them as a back up they would’ve never ran to me so it sucks but you have to play the game.
My radiology interviews were super chill, like you don’t need to worry about them at all they are nothing like orthopedic interviews. They are really just more about getting to know you they might ask you a couple ethical questions but I would say almost half of my interviewers across all the programs their first question to me was “what questions do you have for me“ And I really hated that because it sucks filling 20 minutes of an interview with my own questions but it is what it is. Things I was looking for a radiology program were location was one of my biggest, and I wanted to be at a high-volume program, preferably an academic program but I wasn’t really set on that. Big requirement for me was I wanted to be able to Moonlight as radiology resident because if it was gonna be in ortho I at least wanted the opportunity to make a bunch of money while I was in residency lol. I ended up getting 4 academic interviews and five community. My first choice was a academic program in my hometown that I’ve never taken a DO before, and the PD even brought it up to me during my interview and said “I’m sure you’ll notice that we don’t have any DO’s in our program but it’s not because we don’t want them it’s just because they’ve ended up going other places but we are absolutely open to taking them“ so if I would’ve had to go in to radiology I would’ve been super happy to match this program. My second rank was actually a community program, or more of a community/academic affiliated program whatever you might call that. Absolutely loved that program too. Overall I pretty much liked all of my radiology interviews, bunch of just super cool people great schedules even at the most “hard-working” programs, at least in comparison to Ortho residency lol.
My research was brought up in every single radiology program I interviewed at even at a tiny community program in the middle of nowhere that did almost no research lol. So I think it’s definitely important for them. But like I mentioned earlier I’m pretty sure they just interview people based on stats and things like that.
The one thing I’ll say that you should absolutely do if you are applying radiology as a back up or honestly like radiology at all is send letters of interest extremely early. I mean literally the week that applications go out send letters of interest that week. I ended up waiting a couple weeks to send some and then a couple more weeks to send others but literally six or seven out of my nine interviews came within an hour to two days of me sending that program a letter of interest. The letter was never very long it was started with like hi my name is schwifty my board scores are this I’m very interested in your radiology program for these three or four reasons. If I had connection to that area I would say I also have family in this area and I’ve been there several times blah blah blah. I honestly just wish I would have sent more letters of interest and I wish I would’ve sent them earlier cause I probably would’ve gotten more interviews.
The thing that sucks about applying radiology as a back up is they send out interviews early and you’re probably going to have to miss some Ortho Audition Rotation days to do your radiology interviews. I was able to schedule a two week break in December between Ortho Audition rotations and fortunately I was able to squeeze most of my radiology and transitional year interviews into that two week break. With that said I still had to take maybe 5/6 rads/TY interviews while I was on Ortho auditions. If you have to do them before Ortho universal offer day and you tell the residence “hey I have to miss tomorrow morning because I have an interview” there gonna ask what program because Ortho hasn’t sent it out invites yet. I was just straight up honest with them and said I applied radiology‘s a back up just in case I didnt match, I said I still wantEd ortho the most but I don’t wanna have to go to the soap. The residents, at least the ones I was working with, were totally cool with that they said don’t worry about it and to just come in whenever it’s no issue at all, and honestly half of the residents I said that to told me they also applied radiology or internal medicine or even family medicine as a back up, so they get it. Just try not to schedule too many interviews on one rotation. But I actually ended up Matching at the Ortho program that I did the most radiology interviews on while I was rotating there lol.
Also I didn’t do any radiology rotations as a fourth year. I also didn’t apply to any IR spots because if I wasn’t going to ortho and I was gonna end up in radiology I wanted to chill radiology life lol.
Huge thanks to @TheBoneDoctah and @DNC127 for answering all my questions about ortho over the years! Also, huge thanks to @Ho0v-man and @Steve_Zissou for answering all my radiology questions!
Feel free to ask me any questions!
TLDR: Applying ortho is hard
Basic sats:
Step 1: 250
Step 2: 247
Comlex 1: 581
Comlex 2: 749
Research:
2 pubs, 3 posters, 1 abstract
LOR:
4 Ortho, 2 from PD’s
For Rads: 1 GS, 1 DR, 1 IM
Apps:
~35 ortho
~110DR
40 TY
10 prelim Surgery
7 ortho audition
Interview invites:
7 ortho
9 DR
10 TY (went on 6)
2 prelim GS (canceled both)
Max bench: 210
Everything ortho:
So things I think are import are scores, research and you audition rotation.
DO ortho programs still care about your comlex scores, my level 2 score was brought up in almost every ortho interview. But you absolutely still need to take step 1 and step 2.
As for research it’s important you get you name on something. Get on at least 1 real publication. And you can present whatever other research you work on at conferences or even your schools research day. Just have something. My research was brought up in almost all interviews but it was never a major talking point.
Your audition rotation is most important and is really going to be the major deciding factor. Scores, research, etc. really just get you in the door for an audition. A great audition can make up for a less than stellar app. With that said if you are well below average applicant a great rotation might not be enough, so you need to be honest with yourself about your application.
Rotating at MD programs:
A very common question I get is did I audition at any MD programs, and should you audition at any MD programs. I didn’t audition at any MD programs, it just wasn’t worth it for me. I know people who auditioned at one MD program, and even some who auditioned in multiple MD programs. Some of them matched some of them didn’t, I didn’t know anybody personally who matched at an MD program this year but I know there were a few. The point is they were like 120 DO’s that matched Ortho this year out of approximately 300 applying, and maybe 2 to 5 DO’s matched at MD programs. You need to be honest with yourself and think are you really going to be in the 1% of DO applicants that matches at an MD program? From pretty much every DO I’ve spoken to that is at an MD program they all had some sort of very strong connection to that program, not always, some of them just happen to match an MD program. But the vast majority that I spoke to had strong connections. Strong connections being like they worked with that program for years before medical school, or they did research year there, or they have a close family member that is high-ranking in that program. Those all qualify as strong connections. Just to knowing someone at the program, or haven’t gone there for undergrad, or it even just being your hometown in my opinion is really not enough to justify rotating an MD program. I know applicants with amazing applications, super high board scores, tons of research, etc. that rotated at a bunch of MD programs and ended up not matching. And from the people I spoke to that rotated at both MD and DO programs they say there’s not a huge difference between them, unless of course you’re set on going into academic orthopedics but doing that as a DO is nearly impossible. Point is, the majority of people that apply ortho every year are not going to match, so I recommend you play it as “safe” as you can and just rotate at former DO programs.
How to excel on your ortho audition rotation:
First and biggest thing is please don’t be annoying. I know this seems like common knowledge but you’d be surprised by how many students just never stop talking, or never stop making jokes that aren’t funny, or anything like that. Another thing is when you’re in the OR that’s probably not the best time to try and strike up a conversation with the resident because they’re really busy and focused. If you have a question that you absolutely cannot wait to ask until after the case just try and make it a quick question.
Know how to read basic X-rays. There is some newer website that just came out that gives a really good explanation for how to read x-rays but I can’t remember what it was so hopefully someone can post in the comments and I’ll update it here.
Edit: here’s that website
Nail Fracture Conference
There are also a bunch of YouTube videos that talk about the basics of how to read an x-ray. I would also know the most common fracture classifications, like garden classification Schatzker’s, neer, Gartland, Monteggia, Galeazzi, Evans, Lauge Hansen, Vancouver, Salter-Harris, Gustilo, etc. Pretty much everything Ortho you need can be found on Orthobullets website or in pocket pimped Ortho. Pocket pimped will cover pretty much every pimp question you will get on your audition rotations. I’ll be honest I did not memorize it by any means, but as you go through your rotations you’ll see that you’re really gonna get ask the same questions over and over again and later in the audition season, like months 4 to 6, you’ll start getting more advanced questions and not just reading basic fractures and classifying them. You’ll start to be asked some surgical approaches, how would you handle this, triage these patients in the ED, and stuff like that. But at that point you should be pretty good with most of that stuff. There is also an anki deck made from pocket pimped that’s awesome if you can get it. I would ask the residents at you home program for it and any current 4th years applying ortho at your school. And if you have it don’t be that gunner who doesn’t share it lol. I shared my stuff with other students on rotations and they also gave me some great stuff.
There’s a lot other basic stuff that honestly you’ll pick up pretty quick, but things like always being helpful or showing up on time are really important. When you first get into the OR help with patient positioning, help prep the patient, introduce yourself to the whole team, write your name on the board. I always introduce myself to the OR nurse and scrub tech, make sure you pull your gloves. Just basic stuff like that really goes along way.
If you’re pre-rounding or rounding in the morning either know where the supplies are kept on each floor, or try and keep some basic stuff on you for dressing changes because that’s gonna be what’s most important while rounding.
Which program you go to will be different but for the most part you’ll be pimped during education/fracture conference or in the OR. I would definitely read up on whatever is being presented that week ahead of time, even if you just look through Orthobullets real fast in the morning before hand, just don’t go in the education completely blind on the topics being presented. When your pimped in the OR the majority of your questions will just be anatomy, so know your MSK anatomy of the upper and lower extremities. The majority the cases you’ll be in will be trauma followed by joints. So the majority of your questions will be on those. But I scrubbed literally every subspecialty of ortho except oncology during my rotations so just read up ahead of time on the cases or even between cases if you have too.
Some rotations you’re on you might end up doing a lot of clinic. For the most part you’ll get to do the most in joints clinic. Usually going in interviewing the patient then presenting to the attending. But it’s really program specific some programs I would literally just shadow a resident or attending in clinic and other programs I would get a full history, full plan, chart, present to the attending and do injections and whatever. Clinic usually becomes pretty repetitive overtime, especially if it’s joints so you’ll get the hang of it pretty quick.
I would definitely try and pick your first to Ortho Audition Rotation’s pretty carefully. Try and read as many reviews about them as you can and see which programs let you work with the PD the most or a PD or even an individual attending the most, because you’re gonna want to get letters of recommendation from your first two rotations. I ended up getting two letters of recommendation from my third year ortho rotations and then the PD’s from my first and second auditions also wrote me letters. If you have any sort of connection to a program it’s important to use that the best you can. Even with a perfect application and connections it still takes a bit of luck to match just because of the number of DO’s applying ortho nowadays.
Ortho interviews:
A lot of DO programs don’t release interviews on universal offer day, I think I only got two of my seven ortho interviews on that day so don’t worry about that. Ortho interviews can be pretty intense. But nothing crazy. Pretty much all of my interviews consisted of three rooms. One with just myself and the PD, one with a couple residents and one or two attending’s, and then one room with a couple residents and one or two attending’s but in this room they would pull up x-rays and have you read them. They would then pimp you on surgical approaches, triaging patients, classifying fractures, why do we use this fracture classification, and stuff like that. Only one of my interviews was in person, the rest were on zoom.
My radiology application:
This sections a lot smaller because applying radiology is not nearly as difficult as applying ortho. But I had completely different letters for radiology and a completely different personal statement. In one of my radiology interviews the PD said to me “hey it looks like your application is really geared towards orthopedics what’s up with that?” I never recommend lying but honestly in this situation I wasn’t gonna tell them that I was applying rads as a backup so I just said I was really interested in orthopedics at first but I decided to switching to radiology. I’m not recommending you lie but I feel like if I would’ve told them I was applying to them as a back up they would’ve never ran to me so it sucks but you have to play the game.
My radiology interviews were super chill, like you don’t need to worry about them at all they are nothing like orthopedic interviews. They are really just more about getting to know you they might ask you a couple ethical questions but I would say almost half of my interviewers across all the programs their first question to me was “what questions do you have for me“ And I really hated that because it sucks filling 20 minutes of an interview with my own questions but it is what it is. Things I was looking for a radiology program were location was one of my biggest, and I wanted to be at a high-volume program, preferably an academic program but I wasn’t really set on that. Big requirement for me was I wanted to be able to Moonlight as radiology resident because if it was gonna be in ortho I at least wanted the opportunity to make a bunch of money while I was in residency lol. I ended up getting 4 academic interviews and five community. My first choice was a academic program in my hometown that I’ve never taken a DO before, and the PD even brought it up to me during my interview and said “I’m sure you’ll notice that we don’t have any DO’s in our program but it’s not because we don’t want them it’s just because they’ve ended up going other places but we are absolutely open to taking them“ so if I would’ve had to go in to radiology I would’ve been super happy to match this program. My second rank was actually a community program, or more of a community/academic affiliated program whatever you might call that. Absolutely loved that program too. Overall I pretty much liked all of my radiology interviews, bunch of just super cool people great schedules even at the most “hard-working” programs, at least in comparison to Ortho residency lol.
My research was brought up in every single radiology program I interviewed at even at a tiny community program in the middle of nowhere that did almost no research lol. So I think it’s definitely important for them. But like I mentioned earlier I’m pretty sure they just interview people based on stats and things like that.
The one thing I’ll say that you should absolutely do if you are applying radiology as a back up or honestly like radiology at all is send letters of interest extremely early. I mean literally the week that applications go out send letters of interest that week. I ended up waiting a couple weeks to send some and then a couple more weeks to send others but literally six or seven out of my nine interviews came within an hour to two days of me sending that program a letter of interest. The letter was never very long it was started with like hi my name is schwifty my board scores are this I’m very interested in your radiology program for these three or four reasons. If I had connection to that area I would say I also have family in this area and I’ve been there several times blah blah blah. I honestly just wish I would have sent more letters of interest and I wish I would’ve sent them earlier cause I probably would’ve gotten more interviews.
The thing that sucks about applying radiology as a back up is they send out interviews early and you’re probably going to have to miss some Ortho Audition Rotation days to do your radiology interviews. I was able to schedule a two week break in December between Ortho Audition rotations and fortunately I was able to squeeze most of my radiology and transitional year interviews into that two week break. With that said I still had to take maybe 5/6 rads/TY interviews while I was on Ortho auditions. If you have to do them before Ortho universal offer day and you tell the residence “hey I have to miss tomorrow morning because I have an interview” there gonna ask what program because Ortho hasn’t sent it out invites yet. I was just straight up honest with them and said I applied radiology‘s a back up just in case I didnt match, I said I still wantEd ortho the most but I don’t wanna have to go to the soap. The residents, at least the ones I was working with, were totally cool with that they said don’t worry about it and to just come in whenever it’s no issue at all, and honestly half of the residents I said that to told me they also applied radiology or internal medicine or even family medicine as a back up, so they get it. Just try not to schedule too many interviews on one rotation. But I actually ended up Matching at the Ortho program that I did the most radiology interviews on while I was rotating there lol.
Also I didn’t do any radiology rotations as a fourth year. I also didn’t apply to any IR spots because if I wasn’t going to ortho and I was gonna end up in radiology I wanted to chill radiology life lol.
Huge thanks to @TheBoneDoctah and @DNC127 for answering all my questions about ortho over the years! Also, huge thanks to @Ho0v-man and @Steve_Zissou for answering all my radiology questions!
Feel free to ask me any questions!
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. Congratulations again!
