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Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, youll end up in the stars.
How much does the above hold true for match placement? Scenario: upon matriculation and beginning MS1, a student is enthusiastic about almost every specialty, with a few exceptions, even IM vs surgical. S/he is open to PC, specialist care, or even academia at this point. Everyone tells them they wont really know till clerkships, and even then they cant rotate into everything and each experience is attending-based (i.e. one may love a specialty but not realize it because of personality clashes on rounds. Oh well.)
SO its obvious that boards you want to maximize your score and if you can do honors and once you hit third year do great in clinicals regardless. But certain things start earlier what student groups, what research (if any), and what other things one keeps involved in between MS1 and MS3.
For instance, some people hold that doing basic research (especially if publication is possible) is always better than clinical whereas others say more numbers of publications at the pre-fellowship stage will be better for March Match so clinical is better. This debate is unlikely to be resolved but more likely, Id like to know some people say programs are understanding if you do research in one thing your whole med school time, and want to specialize in another field many things are cross-applicable to an extent. Others say that if you want a competitive specialty (i.e. rad onc), you had better have research in that field, research in other fields is fine but there are too many people with rad onc research vying and youve really downed your chances if you start between MS1 and MS2 in say, regenerative medicine research having nothing to do w/cancer. This example is just to illustrate.
So the actual question is: if you dont know if youre going to be enamored w/family medicine or neurosurgery or whatever. And if you pick the most competitive IM and surgical specialty, currently derm/plastics as far as I know (plastics straight not gen-surg/plastics-fellowship). And if you do all you can to be uber-competitive in either one of those (ok I think its unrealistic unless you actually really love those to join only derm/plastics interests groups, etc etc but you get the idea research project that spans those two, etc). When you decide on the actual IM or surgical specialty that you want to do your whole life, are you (if you succeeded in the above the whole time) good to pick whatever you want, assuming youre in the top 5% of all applicants in those 2? OR do you have to know what youre doing earlier than MS3 even though everyone says you wont know till then and set yourself up specifically for some of them?
-I fully recognize this will take some generalization and detail-ignoring to answer at all, and everything is case/program specific, so feel free to say there is no heuristic rule of thumb thatll work out if thats what your experience tells you. Oh, and of course I dont know if I could do what Im proposing anyway, sounds tough. Im just trying to get a perspective of what other peoples opinions are, then Ill be going to professionals (just hopefully with some extra food for thought on what people think here !) Sorry to be all inflammatory w/derm/plastics. Im wanting to maximize my options so theyre just the ones to mention in this question. Thank you!
How much does the above hold true for match placement? Scenario: upon matriculation and beginning MS1, a student is enthusiastic about almost every specialty, with a few exceptions, even IM vs surgical. S/he is open to PC, specialist care, or even academia at this point. Everyone tells them they wont really know till clerkships, and even then they cant rotate into everything and each experience is attending-based (i.e. one may love a specialty but not realize it because of personality clashes on rounds. Oh well.)
SO its obvious that boards you want to maximize your score and if you can do honors and once you hit third year do great in clinicals regardless. But certain things start earlier what student groups, what research (if any), and what other things one keeps involved in between MS1 and MS3.
For instance, some people hold that doing basic research (especially if publication is possible) is always better than clinical whereas others say more numbers of publications at the pre-fellowship stage will be better for March Match so clinical is better. This debate is unlikely to be resolved but more likely, Id like to know some people say programs are understanding if you do research in one thing your whole med school time, and want to specialize in another field many things are cross-applicable to an extent. Others say that if you want a competitive specialty (i.e. rad onc), you had better have research in that field, research in other fields is fine but there are too many people with rad onc research vying and youve really downed your chances if you start between MS1 and MS2 in say, regenerative medicine research having nothing to do w/cancer. This example is just to illustrate.
So the actual question is: if you dont know if youre going to be enamored w/family medicine or neurosurgery or whatever. And if you pick the most competitive IM and surgical specialty, currently derm/plastics as far as I know (plastics straight not gen-surg/plastics-fellowship). And if you do all you can to be uber-competitive in either one of those (ok I think its unrealistic unless you actually really love those to join only derm/plastics interests groups, etc etc but you get the idea research project that spans those two, etc). When you decide on the actual IM or surgical specialty that you want to do your whole life, are you (if you succeeded in the above the whole time) good to pick whatever you want, assuming youre in the top 5% of all applicants in those 2? OR do you have to know what youre doing earlier than MS3 even though everyone says you wont know till then and set yourself up specifically for some of them?
-I fully recognize this will take some generalization and detail-ignoring to answer at all, and everything is case/program specific, so feel free to say there is no heuristic rule of thumb thatll work out if thats what your experience tells you. Oh, and of course I dont know if I could do what Im proposing anyway, sounds tough. Im just trying to get a perspective of what other peoples opinions are, then Ill be going to professionals (just hopefully with some extra food for thought on what people think here !) Sorry to be all inflammatory w/derm/plastics. Im wanting to maximize my options so theyre just the ones to mention in this question. Thank you!
I like Paul Rudd, but the 'facepalm' is my general attitude to life, and especially toward pre-meds/most med students (like the OP)
