does a specific med school determine if you get optho

[frubeak]

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Hi everyone,

I am an undergrad applying to med school this summer. I am highly interested in optho after shadowing two opthalmologists and want to learn more about how to become competitive for opthalmology. Does it matter if the med school I go to has an opthalmology program? If they don't, can one not match into it because there's no opthalmology exposure/elective to take? Are there certain schools that anyone would highly recommend for matching into opthalmology? Any information, or websites/guides would be of great help.

 

[JR]

Welcome to the forum,

May I recommend this thread:

http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=66427

Good luck!

 

[frubeak]

Thanks for the link. Very helpful.

 

[Pikkaliu]

i would highly recommend taking a look at the match list from schools you are considering. you might even go so far as asking the match rate of the school... if you have the time, meet with the ophtho department to get a feel of how supportive they are of students... it's never too early to start getting to know them =P

nevertheless, although the list and rate may suggest a pattern, with good grades, step scores, letters, research, and extracurriculars I believe you can match somewhere from any US med school, so don't let the list and rate discourage you from a school that you love. it's more important for you to be happy where you are and good things will follow.

btw, i also recommend "iserson's getting into a medical residency" it has advice for all stages of med school and can give you an idea of what's ahead.

 

[exmike]

Hi everyone,

I am an undergrad applying to med school this summer. I am highly interested in optho after shadowing two opthalmologists and want to learn more about how to become competitive for opthalmology. Does it matter if the med school I go to has an opthalmology program? If they don't, can one not match into it because there's no opthalmology exposure/elective to take? Are there certain schools that anyone would highly recommend for matching into opthalmology? Any information, or websites/guides would be of great help.

spelling it correctly would help you get in 😛

 

[bulldoc]

in general, going to a med school with a strong ophtho program (even a mid-tier med school) CAN help you match into ophtho, not necessarily at your home program, but elsewhere as well because you will rotate through the department, have exposure to big wig faculty, etc, who can eventually vouch for you/write you LOR's.

The best would be to get into a top med school that also has a top program (ie. harvard, john's hopkins, ucla etc), but this is not a necessity since you can most definitely match into mass eye and ear coming from a unranked med school (although you are fighting somewhat of an uphill battle).

Moral of the story is, apply broadly to a wide range of med schools, and go to the best one you get into. good luck.

 

[flooby]

I would be careful inquiring too much about ophthalmology and/or appearing like you are not interested in anything else. Not all, but a lot of medical schools love student going into primary care fields ideally, or very open minded at a minimum

 

[greenbean]

at our school, 3 students applied to ophtho and none matched, our school is ranked at the bottom of the top 50 acc. to us news/wr, i think the school's dept has to be well connected in order to be successful in matching its applicants(ie duke, hopkins, harvard,yale, ucla, etc),, actually come to think about it, alot of ppl in our class didn't match at all, lots of ppl just doing prelims with no residency

i think i would take match outcomes of your medical school very seriously, this is everyones future and shouldn't played around with

if you are into ophtho(or anything competitive), maybe email the career advisor for ophtho/X field at the schools you are interested and ask them specific questions about how well ms's match, what programs do they get into, how many interviews do they go one, does the school's ophtho/X field program accept its own students or do they prefer not to take their own

and the sooner you start you building up your application the better off you will be when it comes time to applying to residency, all that nonsense about "finding yourself" and keeping your mind open will not matter if you serious about getting into something that lots of other people also want to do. that means you will have to study hard in the preclin years in order to kill your step one, remember to aim HIGH.

in your preclin years, connect early with the department your interested in(i think shadowing other fields will also help in exposing you to lots of medical specialties). the school i was at was particularly helbent on making us all community/family med docs or pcp's. therefore if you wanted to do anything outside that realm, you had to fight tooth and nail. make sure you go to a school where you get more options in your clinical years, especially ask about how the school allows its students to take time off for interviews. our school had so many requirements that you would have to do interviews during core rotations and this would anger the clerk directors who would "remediate" these "bad" students

also work on getting letters of recommendation from people who are well known in the field(this is even better if you go to a school where there is such a person).

im dont want to scare you( i hope i didn't!),, but i want to give you more information than what is typically given on a medschool interview

green