AJS59
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- Aug 7, 2023
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Going to a high-midtier MD school in pre-clinical (everything is P/F preclinical, but pre-clinical contributes 20% to quartiles, compared to 70% for rotations which have grades and 10% for everything after rotations, which also have grades). Do our quartiles matter down the road in terms of residency? I'm passing things comfortably but with the class averaging, on most exams, around a 93%, it makes it particularly hard to consistently differentiate myself, and honestly if possible I'd rather try to enjoy as much of M1 year as possible and do other things (research, volunteering, etc.) before the rubber really hits the road next year (we do things differently and have essentially 12 months of preclinical before rotations).
For reference right now my top specialties of interest would probably be rads (IR over DR, but I like both) or one of the relatively less competitive surgical specialties (thinking urology or gen surg —> trauma or vascular) but also leaving options open in general — all what I know is that I like procedures and patient interactions and imaging but I want to be around people who take things relatively chill, which judging based on my classmates mostly rules out Ortho, Neurosurg, Derm, Plastics and Ophtho. Again, still early and figuring it out though.
For reference right now my top specialties of interest would probably be rads (IR over DR, but I like both) or one of the relatively less competitive surgical specialties (thinking urology or gen surg —> trauma or vascular) but also leaving options open in general — all what I know is that I like procedures and patient interactions and imaging but I want to be around people who take things relatively chill, which judging based on my classmates mostly rules out Ortho, Neurosurg, Derm, Plastics and Ophtho. Again, still early and figuring it out though.