EM advice please

[EMdoc10]

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[dotcb]

I think you'll be able to match with that profile.

 

[JacobMcCandles]

If you're only applying to programs in a "desirable location", I'd apply to more. If you've got a nice mix of programs you've applied to then you'll do just fine.

Of course, there always seems to be a few people with great apps that get blindsided or people with average apps that underapply. If all else fails, play the match as safe as you can. Your career will thank you.

 

[gman33]

You will be fine with those numbers.
Apply broadly to 30+ programs. Not just very desirable programs/locations.

Go on 10-15 interviews and rank them all.

I didn't rank one place, although it didn't matter, looking back this was dumb.
Better to spend a few years at somewhere I didn't like then not match.

All this is assuming you are at least semi-normal.

If not, apply to twice as many places (or ivy league programs).

 

[EMdoc10]

Make that HP at 2nd away 🙁
Anyone else having trouble H'ing these sub-i's? Seems like no matter how hard you try, you're hit with "Great motivation; keep reading to work on differentials & fund of knowledge" + a HP-stamp.
Would love to hear back from fellow 2014ers in similar shoes.

 

[dotcb]

From an attending perspective, our grading rubrick for honors describes it as "top 5%, a few students per year." I give out a few honors grades per year. It doesn't mean HP students aren't excellent, many of them are. But not everyone can be top 5%.

 

[Kal EI]

From an attending perspective, our grading rubrick for honors describes it as "top 5%, a few students per year." I give out a few honors grades per year. It doesn't mean HP students aren't excellent, many of them are. But not everyone can be top 5%.

Yeah, and I'm not even sure what being one of the top 5% in a particular attendings perspective (many disagree on who is top 5%) means to one's career or future contributions to the field. I feel like the medical school game is overplayed and filled with manipulation.

Make that HP at 2nd away 🙁
Anyone else having trouble H'ing these sub-i's? Seems like no matter how hard you try, you're hit with "Great motivation; keep reading to work on differentials & fund of knowledge" + a HP-stamp.
Would love to hear back from fellow 2014ers in similar shoes.

Just keep getting advice and do the best you can. Honesetly, if you were an extremely attractive female and did the same thing, you may get honors on evals. With narrow margins determining these outcomes and subjective evals - it's nothing to sweat over. Great doctors will be great no matter who evaluates them.

 

[deleted547339]

From an attending perspective, our grading rubrick for honors describes it as "top 5%, a few students per year." I give out a few honors grades per year. It doesn't mean HP students aren't excellent, many of them are. But not everyone can be top 5%.

Welcome to Lake Wobegon, where all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking and all the children are above average.

 

[EMdoc10]

Appreciate the encouragement. I agree to the subjectiveness of this process. It's just that, when your standardized stats aren't too high, you really depend on your sub-Is to help...& it's disappointing when your months worth of effort doesn't get rewarded. I'd be very grateful if residents with similar profile to mine in the recent past share any words of advice going into application cycle/making my program-list, on here or via PM🙂

 

[RustedFox]

I've kept my top from popping on here a lot these days. The "this is a good lawsuit" thread particularly makes my blood boil. I might pop off on that later on. Stay tuned.

Look.

This whole "H/HP/P/Whatever" nonsense is bogus. It was born out of the mire of the attitude of 'everyone gets a trophy for showing up', and makes limited sense at best. I've been the "victim" of getting 'just a pass' just because ManHatingShortSpike**** was just 'that way'... and everybody knew it. I've also schmoozed my way into 'honors' despite not having a real firm grasp on ... whatever, can't remember.

If you want pure meritocracy... if you want simple objectivity...

A = 92-100.
B = 84-91. ... and so on. Just like the way it was in school.

Have a predetermined knoweledge base which will be objectively tested in one way or another. Paper exam? Sure. Oral exam? Why not? ThunderDome ?! Absolutely.

Subjectivity is for LORs. Grades are for tests. Keep. It. Simple. Stupid.

Do you hear me, administrators out there ? Do you hear me, med-school curriculum-makers out there ?

"Don't let your schoolin' get in the way of your education." - Mark Twain.


To the OP: I think you'll match just fine.

 

[deleted547339]

I've kept my top from popping on here a lot these days. The "this is a good lawsuit" thread particularly makes my blood boil. I might pop off on that later on. Stay tuned.

Look.

This whole "H/HP/P/Whatever" nonsense is bogus. It was born out of the mire of the attitude of 'everyone gets a trophy for showing up', and makes limited sense at best. I've been the "victim" of getting 'just a pass' just because ManHatingShortSpike**** was just 'that way'... and everybody knew it. I've also schmoozed my way into 'honors' despite not having a real firm grasp on ... whatever, can't remember.

If you want pure meritocracy... if you want simple objectivity...

A = 92-100.
B = 84-91. ... and so on. Just like the way it was in school.

Have a predetermined knoweledge base which will be objectively tested in one way or another. Paper exam? Sure. Oral exam? Why not? ThunderDome ?! Absolutely.

Subjectivity is for LORs. Grades are for tests. Keep. It. Simple. Stupid.

Do you hear me, administrators out there ? Do you hear me, med-school curriculum-makers out there ?

"Don't let your schoolin' get in the way of your education." - Mark Twain.


To the OP: I think you'll match just fine.

Part of me agrees with you, but part of doesn't. I think there needs to be some objectivity in the grading system. But there were some smart d-bags in my med school who were lazy and awful to be around and some average students who worked their butt off, cared about their work and were easy to get along with.

It seems reasonable get grade on a test and a grade from your attending, then take the average. My school just had H/P/F. To get H, you had to get H from the attending and H on the test. If you got a perfect score on the clerkship, but the attending didn't like you --> Pass. If you got 1 point below the H level on the exam but perfect eval from your attending --> Pass.

I don't think we had the best system.

 

[dotcb]

While knowledge is arguably the most important attribute for a physician to command, it's just one of many attributes required to be a successful and competent physician.

See the EM Milestones:
https://www.abem.org/public/publications/emergency-medicine-milestones

Overall clinical performance could never fully be reduced to a numerical or letter grade.

I've kept my top from popping on here a lot these days. The "this is a good lawsuit" thread particularly makes my blood boil. I might pop off on that later on. Stay tuned.

Look.

This whole "H/HP/P/Whatever" nonsense is bogus. It was born out of the mire of the attitude of 'everyone gets a trophy for showing up', and makes limited sense at best. I've been the "victim" of getting 'just a pass' just because ManHatingShortSpike**** was just 'that way'... and everybody knew it. I've also schmoozed my way into 'honors' despite not having a real firm grasp on ... whatever, can't remember.

If you want pure meritocracy... if you want simple objectivity...

A = 92-100.
B = 84-91. ... and so on. Just like the way it was in school.

Have a predetermined knoweledge base which will be objectively tested in one way or another. Paper exam? Sure. Oral exam? Why not? ThunderDome ?! Absolutely.

Subjectivity is for LORs. Grades are for tests. Keep. It. Simple. Stupid.

Do you hear me, administrators out there ? Do you hear me, med-school curriculum-makers out there ?

"Don't let your schoolin' get in the way of your education." - Mark Twain.


To the OP: I think you'll match just fine.

 

[swamprat]

I'm with you OP I HP my home program and worked my butt off as well. I probably have too many slips out to too many attendings and not enough residents or something. Top 15% gets honors at this program tho. I honored all third year clerkships and scored well on board exams. Go figure? And yeah I worked with more than a few attractive females lol

 

[TeamZissou]

I think everyone who has gone through med school realizes the nonsense that is the stratification of third year. Unless your school has it set up just right grades are worthless that year. I got B's in almost every single one of my clerkships even though ones like psych I put very little effort forward vs surg busted my as$ and ended up with the same grade.

Was your attending one who gives out all honors on their evals if they like you? Or did your attending love you but goes "by the book" so gave you a pass?

Sure shelfs are somewhat objective but they essentially get voided by subjective evals. Not to mention if your focus was on a surgical subspecialty instead of general (ENT, Optho, Neuro) the shelf probably wasn't as kind to you as the kid who was on gen surg the whole time.

 

[MSInWaiting]

I've probably got similar numbers overall, compared with what EMdoc10 is describing. Am I being overly paranoid by applying to 50-60 programs? I dunno, I feel like I really want to cast my net wide on this process...

 

[QuackaDO]

I've kept my top from popping on here a lot these days. The "this is a good lawsuit" thread particularly makes my blood boil. I might pop off on that later on. Stay tuned.

Look.

This whole "H/HP/P/Whatever" nonsense is bogus. It was born out of the mire of the attitude of 'everyone gets a trophy for showing up', and makes limited sense at best. I've been the "victim" of getting 'just a pass' just because ManHatingShortSpike**** was just 'that way'... and everybody knew it. I've also schmoozed my way into 'honors' despite not having a real firm grasp on ... whatever, can't remember.

If you want pure meritocracy... if you want simple objectivity...

A = 92-100.
B = 84-91. ... and so on. Just like the way it was in school.

Have a predetermined knoweledge base which will be objectively tested in one way or another. Paper exam? Sure. Oral exam? Why not? ThunderDome ?! Absolutely.

Subjectivity is for LORs. Grades are for tests. Keep. It. Simple. Stupid.

Do you hear me, administrators out there ? Do you hear me, med-school curriculum-makers out there ?

"Don't let your schoolin' get in the way of your education." - Mark Twain.


To the OP: I think you'll match just fine.

There's totally a better way to do this, it just requires more "work" for school and for programs to evaluate which is why it won't happen. You get two grades per clerkship... a grade for the test which is based on your score broken down like you did above (or just simply report the score itself, either way) and a grade that is the composition of your preceptor(s) evaluations.

The reason it's more work for schools is they have to determine just what is passing... and what you need to get in one part vs another. I think it's easy to say if you fail any part then it's a fail for the clerkship but what do you do with a student who honors the rotation on the eval but fails the test?? Do they have to redo the rotation? Things like that make it harder.

For programs, they have to then objectively look and decide what's more important to them... a person who tests well or a person that performs well? It makes the water a little murkier but as with stats and research, more data is almost always preferred over less. I think this is a workable and BETTER solution to solitary H/HP/P/LP/F grades used to encompass TWO aspects of a rotation. How can you quantify 2 vastly different aspects with one non flexible score? Call me crazy but I think this would be better...

OP, as I've told you, you will be fine. Your problem is NOT your stats... it's your confidence. You have got to figure out a way to start focusing on whatever it is that you think that you do WELL and exploiting it and highlighting it to these people instead of focusing on what you are lacking in.

Let's be honest... your #s are average. With that said, that is ALL you need to match. What you need on top of that is "something" else that sells who you are and that makes you attractive to programs and makes them say "I want that guy on my team". It won't be your scores. It won't be anything you're worrying about most... it will be something you're probably downplaying the most and not trying to show to these people evaluating you. Find your value and put it out there for these PDs to see and for others to say "He may not have the highest scores, but damn... he sure does _____ with enthusiasm and dedication which is what sets him apart".

Look at the people that you know that get honors and what do you see as the difference between them and you? I'm betting the biggest thing is confidence. You have to be confident in yourself (but not overconfident) and carry yourself that way and basically make it an issue of your attitude is "I know my scores aren't my strengths... ____ is my strength and THAT is why you want me on your team". Show your worth, show your strength, and you will do fine.

Your numbers are good enough to get as many interviews as you're wanting. Will it be at the top 10 programs in the country? Probably not (but you might slip up and get one or two of them), but you will get enough and then you have to go in and sell yourself. I'd suggest (if you've never done it) either an interview prep system or REALLY start researching the common interview questions and learn how to use those questions to your benefit. Somewhere, sometime you will be asked something like "what's your biggest weakness". Learn it, own it, and learn how to spin that into a great answer instead of some BS answer like "I tend to work too hard sometimes" or whatever answer they hear ALL the time. Be individual, be unique, and be yourself and you'll find you're in such a good position that you will be making decisions based on where you WANT to be vs where you think you can get in. Good luck

 

[GreenEydGem]

You'll receive a good number of interviews with those numbers. If you're more interested in academics, not having research may not be a great thing but overall what you listed in fine.

Best wishes.