DOs in G Surg

[Krazykritter]

---

Members do not see this ad.

For current g surg residents:
Do you recommend taking both the COMLEX and USMLE? I will probably be applying to mostly AOA, but a few ACGME positions in the Midwest and am not really interested in academic medicine. Hypothetically, can your application be hurt at all by a decent COMLEX score and a lower USMLE?

Also, what advice would you give as the most important to matching into a position? What is the best thing to do to offset average to slightly below average pre-clinical grades?

Thanks in advance for your responses.

 

[eddoc]

I'm not a resident, but I'm a 4th yr DO student applying for gen surgery. I applied to both osteopathic and allopathic programs, but will only be ranking allopathic programs. I took both comlex and usmle, and my usmle scores were the same on step I and higher on step II as compared to comlex. If you want to match into allopathic gen surgery, then I HIGHLY recommend you take usmle. It doesn't matter if your scores are lower, as long as they are competitive. I've noticed that most programs don't even look at my comlex scores. This is in the northeast, but I can't imagine it would be much different anywhere else.