ERAS questions, final round

[dermhopefully]

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Hello everyone, thanks again for your previous help with my ERAS questions threads, thanks also for help with all of my previous non-ERAS questions as well. Anyways, I have a few final ones to run by everyone, as always, and input/help is appreciated.

Ethnicity: I am technically 1/4 Hispanic, I have some dark features but am pretty white, should I put this down (I put down race:white ethnicity: Hispanic). I am unsure if programs even get to see this info, does it make a difference?

Subjective comments in my ERAS descriptions: Sometimes I put this is activity/experience X, I did 30 hours of work on X, these were the subparts of X, and finally X changed me in the following ways (begin a few subjective sentences). Should I keep these descriptions totally objective? Add in maybe one line of subjective/"what it meant to me stuff"? More? I didn't know.....

CV vs. ERAS: do programs download our ERAS CV or our ERAS application? I ask because depending on which one they download sometimes can cause comma splices to show up (i.e. in my CV comma splices show up in the misc. section that don't show up in the misc. section if they download my ERAS app. It's like a formatting thing...)

Thanks for any help. Sore eye asses, where are you? I want to make sure to apply so I can meet you.

Good luck everyone,
Dermhopefully

 

[werd]

i would be as succinct as possible on your activity descriptions, like 2 sentences total. if you write a long paragraph for each, no one is going to read the whole thing. if they want to know more detail about it, they can ask at an interview. i wouldn't worry about the ethnicity question either way... since you said "technically" 1/4 hispanic, it sounds like you're pretty much white. i think it varies by program whether they use the CV or plain old ERAS. btw, nice use of the word splice.

 

[sore eye asses]

Sore eye asses, where are you? I want to make sure to apply so I can meet you.

in a past post i mentioned where i matched, which is your mom's house. i was lying in that post. i did not actually match at your mom's house. you were stupid to have taken me at face value on that. of course i did not match at your mom's house.

in reality, i matched at your dad's house. your mother and father recently divorced (sorry, i know this is sad, and i'm sorry they didn't tell you and you have to find out this way), and your dad was homeless and destitute, so i moved in with him. we were a match, so to speak. now we have a cute little house near nantucket, where we raise sheep, and periodically i'll give them skin checks (your dad and the sheep) to keep my dermatologic skills honed. most of my sheep have echinococcus i think. they are ass holes. some also probably have scabies. whatever, they deserve it. their wool is stupid and doesn't provide the correct amount of warmth.

ok, good luck.

 

[FixItUp Chappie]

Hello everyone, thanks again for your previous help with my ERAS questions threads, thanks also for help with all of my previous non-ERAS questions as well. Anyways, I have a few final ones to run by everyone, as always, and input/help is appreciated.

Ethnicity: I am technically 1/4 Hispanic, I have some dark features but am pretty white, should I put this down (I put down race:white ethnicity: Hispanic). I am unsure if programs even get to see this info, does it make a difference?

Subjective comments in my ERAS descriptions: Sometimes I put this is activity/experience X, I did 30 hours of work on X, these were the subparts of X, and finally X changed me in the following ways (begin a few subjective sentences). Should I keep these descriptions totally objective? Add in maybe one line of subjective/"what it meant to me stuff"? More? I didn't know.....

CV vs. ERAS: do programs download our ERAS CV or our ERAS application? I ask because depending on which one they download sometimes can cause comma splices to show up (i.e. in my CV comma splices show up in the misc. section that don't show up in the misc. section if they download my ERAS app. It's like a formatting thing...)

Thanks for any help. Sore eye asses, where are you? I want to make sure to apply so I can meet you.

Good luck everyone,
Dermhopefully

Am I correct in thinking the tone of your question suggests that you feel that you may gain some benefit from listing Hispanic vs. Caucasian? I am not 100% certain if you would get a benefit between the two, but if there are programs that rank diversity as very important quality in who they choose to interview, you might.

As far as the ethics of your question, if there is an assumed benefit, it depends on if you can justify your intentions. If you grew up immersed in the hispanic culture, speak spanish fluently, etc I would not see any problem with listing it as your ethnicity regardless of if you 1/4, 1/2, 1/8th. I would also look to your previous applications to Undergrad and Med School. If there is a disconnect, such as you listing caucasian for Undergrad/Med School and then listing Hispanic for ERAS, that could potentially come back to bite you at some point in time. That occurrence is unlikely, but as I said, potential.

The alternate side of that is I believe that Native Americans are only allowed to list native american as their ethnicity if they are >1/16 and have documentation. If you use this as your litmus test, then 1/4 seems quite reasonable.

Ultimately, the decision is up to you and will probably play a small role your overall application unless you also pair it with being fluent with Spanish. However fluency in any other language would also play an important role. As I said earlier, as long as you can justify your reasoning, I don't think it's something that anyone would fault you for.

As far as the subjective comments, I think you should thoroughly explain what you did, but not belabor the details such as hours. If you have spent a lot of time on the particulars, its probably not worth the time to pull them all out, but if you are laboring over inserting them in these last 24 hours, its also not worth it.

As far as the comma splice issue, I suggest that you enter all of your written text in ERAS in one of two ways.
1. Type it into the boxes themselves.
2. (my preference) Put into a word processor with a spell checker/grammar checker and then subsequently convert it to a RTF or covert it in Notepad. This will prevent you from cutting and pasting unusual symbols and poor grammar into the ERAS program. As far as the CAF vs. CV, you have my empathy. It's really tough to reconcile those so they are both grammatically perfect.

 

[sensitive skin]

You speak Spanish fluently?