electives

[Arctic Char]

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what are 4th year path electives like? busy, or not so much?

i am debating whether or not to do an elective in july and study for step II concurrently (having a letter from a july elective will be big for me. i'd like to have letters from july and august ready to go so i can submit my applications ASAP in september).

so, can anyone comment? is it too much to try to study for step II while on a path elective?

all input is highly appreciated

cheers

 

[Path or bust]

what are 4th year path electives like? busy, or not so much?

i am debating whether or not to do an elective in july and study for step II concurrently (having a letter from a july elective will be big for me. i'd like to have letters from july and august ready to go so i can submit my applications ASAP in september).

so, can anyone comment? is it too much to try to study for step II while on a path elective?

all input is highly appreciated

cheers

I think that is a reasonable idea. Getting letters in pathology is big for your application. If you are just finishing 3rd year everything will be quite fresh and easy to recall for review. As opposed to step 1, people usually study very little for step 2. But it depends on what kind of score you are aiming for. I particularly didn't care and studied for 4 hours/day for 2 weeks and got a 232 (I am far from an overachiever). What I would do is submit your application in September, take the step shortly after you submit so that you can choose to not release your score if you are unhappy with the results. There is a box that you can check off that allows you to do this. This is what I did and it worked out perfectly. Had I not taken the step so early I would have needed to do a much more thorough review since alot of info at this point of my 4th year has vanished.

 

[Arctic Char]

wow, thanks for the input. i was leaning toward that idea myself, i just wasn't sure if it could be pulled off while trying to perform well during an elective, and wasn't sure what exactly that would entail in a path elective. but yeah, i think those letters will be big . . .

thanks again

 

[mlw03]

depends on how hard core you want to be during your path elective, and what the expectations are there. for example, if you could work 8-3 each day and then study in the evening, yeah, i think you could do both simultaneously. but if they're gonna treat you like a first year resident with grossing and previewing responsibilities, then you're gonna be doing reading at night to prepare for signout. it's important you show you're getting smarter as the month progresses. you probably can't spot an adenomatous polyp now, but if you sign out a lot of GI they'll wonder why not if you can't by the end of 4 weeks. so again, the most important thing in answering your questions is to know what they're going to expect from you. some places may be glad if you show up a few hours in the afternoon to sign-out cold with an attending, which would give you mornings and evenings to study. you can see it all depends on what you'll be doing on your path elective.

all that said, what about studying in the time between MS3 and MS4? we got 2 weeks at my school, and 2 weeks of doing usmleworld questions for 6 hours a day is plenty of studying.

hopefully this is something you know, but i would only consider doing this for your HOME path elective, not an away elective at a place you're trying to impress them.

 

[Arctic Char]

thanks for the feedback. i guess i'll spell out my scenario and see if anyone can keep up with my ridiculous situation . . .

i'm a student at The Medical School for International Health (MSIH), its an american MD program, a collaboration between Columbia University and Ben-Gurion University in Israel
(more information if you're curious can be found here: http://www.acphysci.com/aps/resources/PDFs/Sept_07_Feature.pdf). sorry, but i get a lot of questions about it and its easier to just refer to an article . . .

so technically, i'm an IMG, which kind of sucks in terms of bureaucracy, but not that bad in the long run, especially considering how much i have enjoyed my program. anyway, i have Columbia electives available to me beginning in july. of course, i have to submit my ERAS early in september. july is typically used by our students to study and take step 2. but being in the position i am in, having letters from american pathologists is huge, and i'd like to secure as many as i can, as early as i can. and having letters (assuming i can get good ones, of course) from july and august would make me feel a lot better about submitting my application, and then i can add more letters as i get them.

i guess i just don't know what to expect during these path electives at columbia . . . part of me feels i can study hard for step 2 throughout the next 4 months and afford myself a knowledge fund that will afford doing an elective and polishing my step 2 skills concurrently in july. but i just don't want to compromise my score. the other part of me feels if i took july to study for step 2 i could nail it and get it out of the way. but then i'd have to settle for letters only during august and september itself . . . which feels risky, given the importance of applying early (i was lucky enough to get some good advice about applying early by PM)

anyway, anyone follow? care to comment? thanks again to all you guys . . .

 

[TypicalTuesday]

I think that is a reasonable idea. Getting letters in pathology is big for your application. If you are just finishing 3rd year everything will be quite fresh and easy to recall for review. As opposed to step 1, people usually study very little for step 2. But it depends on what kind of score you are aiming for. I particularly didn't care and studied for 4 hours/day for 2 weeks and got a 232 (I am far from an overachiever). What I would do is submit your application in September, take the step shortly after you submit so that you can choose to not release your score if you are unhappy with the results. There is a box that you can check off that allows you to do this. This is what I did and it worked out perfectly. Had I not taken the step so early I would have needed to do a much more thorough review since alot of info at this point of my 4th year has vanished.

So I'm in the same boat as arctic char and was just wondering how well you did on shelf exams (i.e. do shelf scores correlate to step 2, because if they do, I'm going to need to study a bit more than 2 weeks for it). also, are you just a genius to start with because 232 sounds pretty good to me!

 

[mlw03]

first of all, very cool program. i was in israel this past summer, and i think it'd be very neat to live there (yeah, i'm jewish), especially in the middle of the country where it's relatively peaceful. although the negev is brutally hot in the summer. anyway, what i would say is that yes, having a complete app by mid-september is very important. so if you think you can get 2 LoRs in August from pathologists, that'd be fine. pushing it to september would be risky.

that said, you could just study hard during the last 4-6 weeks of the year and take it right away. that's sorta what i did and it worked fine. another option would be to delay taking step 2 until after your path rotations at columbia in september. if you have a decent step 1 score that's a reasonable option.

as a slight aside, have you considered doing your residency in israel? do you know what that entails? it's not something i would do, but i certainly wouldn't rule out moving to and practicing in israel at some point in the future if i could deal with the licensure and language issues. feel free to PM me if you'd rather not get this thread off on a tangent.

 

[clancy81]

So I'm in the same boat as arctic char and was just wondering how well you did on shelf exams (i.e. do shelf scores correlate to step 2, because if they do, I'm going to need to study a bit more than 2 weeks for it). also, are you just a genius to start with because 232 sounds pretty good to me!

I think my Medicine shelf score probably correlated the best, but I also had Medicine as one of my last shelf so had gotten better at them as the year went on. The Medicine shelf was very high yield for Step 2, so if you have Medicine at the end of the year it might cut down on your studying time.

 

[mlw03]

I think my Medicine shelf score probably correlated the best, but I also had Medicine as one of my last shelf so had gotten better at them as the year went on. The Medicine shelf was very high yield for Step 2, so if you have Medicine at the end of the year it might cut down on your studying time.

i agree strongly with everything clancy wrote here.

 

[Arctic Char]

as a slight aside, have you considered doing your residency in israel? do you know what that entails? it's not something i would do, but i certainly wouldn't rule out moving to and practicing in israel at some point in the future if i could deal with the licensure and language issues. feel free to PM me if you'd rather not get this thread off on a tangent.

i don't think a tangent is necessary as i can answer the question rather quickly. living and studying in israel the past 2.5 years has been the greatest experience of my life. but i am very excited and anxious to return home. i'm from alaska for heaven's sake, so the fun of an exotic land and culture (i'm not jewish) has kept me going for a while, but has worn off a little and i think its time to find a good residency program in a comfortable place to live.

2 letters from august? hmm, i hadn't thought of that one. nonetheless, i think i am going to schedule and elective in july and just be extra diligent about studying for step 2 early . . .

thanks again mate

cheers

 

[docbiohazard]

To be honest, I didn't find a huge correlation of step scores to my shelf. My step exams I tended to do around the average, plus or minus a few points. I rocked the bejesus out of Step 2. In general, this may be due to the fact that people study more for the shelfs than they ultimately do for Step 2 in most places around the country, and may in fact take step 2 very very late in 4th year... just my 2 cents...

BH