Dual Applicant — Advice on Navigating the Cycle

[noretractorsplease]

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Dear SDN Community,

I need an advice on how to navigate dual applying to surgical sub-specialty and IM. So, I think I’m in somewhat less common situation where I really don’t want to go into gen surg and would be very happy as IM doc or potentially sub specialist, but I know you shouldn’t go into IM if you can’t be happy as internist.

My question is how would you recommend dancing around the fact that my application very much screams “dual applying” considering my research experiences, extracurricular, and away rotations. I do have some IM research as a co-author but definitely not anything impressive.

And I wanted to mention that it’s not about just matching anywhere, which I know most of students do, but matching into a decent academic IM program where I can have better resources if I do end up wanting to sub specialize.

Thank you so much in advance! And thank you for years of continued support of this community.

 

[gutonc]

Nobody has responded to your post because it is a unique situation.

Do you feel that you're a marginal candidate to match in your preferred specialty and IM-->Cards/GI is a decent backup? Or are you truly undecided between (e.g.) Ophtho and IM? (To be clear, I'm using Ophtho as a stand-in for your unnamed surgical sub, I have no idea, nor do I care, what that actual specialty is.)

If the former, it's a hard needle to thread and you're likely just going to have to fake it. If the latter, just have separate PS's and LORs and go for it. Your IM PS could say something about being all into Ophtho but realizing that you would make a greater impact on health in IM and changed your mind. Lots of people start med school gung ho for Ophtho and get tons of research and LORs in that, but wind up going into IM in the end. IM PDs are pretty forgiving about that.