For the exiting 4th years...

[calvinhobbes]

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Just stumbled upon this thread because I saw it was getting a lot of activity on the main page. Stony Brook... I know a couple of 4th years there and I will ask them if they have an idea of who skinMD is. My curiosity has been piqued.

skinMD tells it as it is, he doesn't sugarcoat, he tells the truth and is straightforward. To be honest I wish more people like him posted around here, bc the inflation of false hope and lies on SDN is sometimes too much.

 

[235009]

Question: did you mean preliminary for the other match? (what is a primary care match as opposed to categorical?) Thanks a lot for your insight.

you're welcome

primary care IM programs are also 3 year residencies but focus more on primary prevention and outpatient medicine vs. categorical programs. in terms of the logistics it means more clinic time and seminars in place of subspecialty electives.

 

[SLC]

skinMD tells it as it is, he doesn't sugarcoat, he tells the truth and is straightforward. To be honest I wish more people like him posted around here, bc the inflation of false hope and lies on SDN is sometimes too much.

True as that may be, his delivery is lacking. He lays the condescension on pretty thick and that ends up being a total turnoff.

There's telling the truth, then there's being a dick about it. None of us need anyone here reminding us we won't likely match at MGH. None (well probably the vast majority) of us care about that. Most all of us just want to become quality physicians and get out there and practice.

And for the record, being the OP and all I can safely say that the question was how do I become the best applicant possible, I didn't ask for a rundown on what types of programs I can or can't match to. I'm a married student, I have kids, I don't want to move to NYC or Boston, and I don't care about "prestige". I suspect the vast majority of med-students (MD and DO) are not that dissimilar to me.

 

[username456789]

I honestly wouldn't stress research too much. It looks nice but I'm not convinced the effort it takes is worth the small advantage. Lots of people do research, so it doesn't make you really stand out in any way if you have it.

Think of ways to stand out. I dunno, do mission trips, take on leadership roles, be active in your state medical association. Also start thinking about your personal statement! Your personal statement really needs to stand out, it will be there first impression of you and can determine whether or not they will invite you for an interview 🙂

Edit: I saw a statement about how a DO can only aspire to match to a "mid-tier" program at best. This is BS 🙂 (based on knowing where my classmates matched)

Unless the whole DO world is completely and utterly different than the MD world, most of this advice is kind of backwards, depending on the specialty (the more competitive the specialty, the more incorrect your advice is).

Research, for the more competitive specialties, tends to be at the very least a box that must be checked (or at least is strongly recommended).

Community service and volunteering and being vice president of student interest groups matters very little when applying for residency.

 

[username456789]

True as that may be, his delivery is lacking. He lays the condescension on pretty thick and that ends up being a total turnoff.

There's telling the truth, then there's being a dick about it. None of us need anyone here reminding us we won't likely match at MGH. None (well probably the vast majority) of us care about that. Most all of us just want to become quality physicians and get out there and practice.

And for the record, being the OP and all I can safely say that the question was how do I become the best applicant possible, I didn't ask for a rundown on what types of programs I can or can't match to. I'm a married student, I have kids, I don't want to move to NYC or Boston, and I don't care about "prestige". I suspect the vast majority of med-students (MD and DO) are not that dissimilar to me.

Here's the thing though: sometimes you need someone to just be a dick about it to you. It helps if that person isn't someone you know personally (as in someone here on SDN). As much as we might harp on hurt feelings and all that jazz, at the end of the day you shouldn't really care about me or skinMD or anyone else. You should care about what you can do with the information put forth by people, regardless of the "delivery." If you can get past the bruised egos and absence of sugar coating, you'll walk away from these threads/discussions with useful information to consider.

When you turn off your computer and go actually make life decisions, you're likely not gonna think "man that skinMD sure is a meanie, why did he have to hurt my feelings!" You're going to simply be thinking about the points he or others may have made that, while a bit troubling to the ego at first, may actually hold some water. And sometimes if they're made in a slightly more abrasive manner, they tend to stick more.

I'd sure as hell rather find myself in a good position 5 years down the road because of some hard truths I learned from someone who I at the time thought was a bit abrasive than insulate myself within fluffy soft feelings and find that I had made some poor choices due to my own stubbornness.

At the end of the day, try to decide what, if anything, you can take away from the posts that counter your own beliefs and hopes/desires. Take that information and try to separate it from your emotions that may be tied to the person who offered it. Then figure out what you're really doing with your life.

 

[sylvanthus]

Here's the thing though: sometimes you need someone to just be a dick about it to you. It helps if that person isn't someone you know personally (as in someone here on SDN). As much as we might harp on hurt feelings and all that jazz, at the end of the day you shouldn't really care about me or skinMD or anyone else. You should care about what you can do with the information put forth by people, regardless of the "delivery." If you can get past the bruised egos and absence of sugar coating, you'll walk away from these threads/discussions with useful information to consider.

When you turn off your computer and go actually make life decisions, you're likely not gonna think "man that skinMD sure is a meanie, why did he have to hurt my feelings!" You're going to simply be thinking about the points he or others may have made that, while a bit troubling to the ego at first, may actually hold some water. And sometimes if they're made in a slightly more abrasive manner, they tend to stick more.

I'd sure as hell rather find myself in a good position 5 years down the road because of some hard truths I learned from someone who I at the time thought was a bit abrasive than insulate myself within fluffy soft feelings and find that I had made some poor choices due to my own stubbornness.

At the end of the day, try to decide what, if anything, you can take away from the posts that counter your own beliefs and hopes/desires. Take that information and try to separate it from your emotions that may be tied to the person who offered it. Then figure out what you're really doing with your life.

Agreed.

 

[as1212559]

Don't you worry too much about that. Let me give you a kind advice: if SkinMD = MedPR (which was banned from SDN), it's so natural to expect such highly comments about every aspect of medical school and residency that you, as a medical school student, feel itchy when reading.

Biography: MedPR was a username that made about 20,000 posts in a couple of months 😱. It was said that MedPR was a pre-med that just got an MD acceptance by URM status from somewhere although was gonna kill for a seat at a particular DO school in MO. It was a valid rumor on SDN that MedPR username was used, instead, by a group of people that wanted to manipulate the undecided med school applicants to switch gears from US-DO schools to Caribbean schools by always being the first responder to any DO related post (good or bad), and consistently belittling the DO schools and the life after graduating from a DO school with his virtual gang on SDN.

One of the above posters has written that SkinMD = MedPR, which sounds about right: SkinMD has also accumulated about 2,000 posts in a few months, which are almost always about belittling the DO schools, arguing with DO students, always firing the "tier" concept in GME, and consistently writing about that life is gonna be a total misery after graduating from a DO school. Now, he/she/they tell that he/she/they is/are at 4th year in an MD school. I wonder why a regular student at an MD school hangs so much at any DO related thread on SDN.

RL ftw this is BS

 

[DrBumblebee]

dude ...seriously stop embarassing yourself. it took you a week to figure out whether i was an MD or a DO (though i'm still not sure whether you finally got it right) and your ego is obviously extremely fragile because you're willing to believe anything so you don't actually have to consider the substance of what i'm saying.

Dude/dudette, you're confusing me with someone else as I've never discussed if you're a DO or MD at anywhere. Just try posting less in the forums so that maybe next time you'll recall whom you're referring to.

Anyway, where did you match? What's your "highly" points to DO students as a 4th year exiting MD student?

 

[235009]

Dude/dudette, you're confusing me with someone else as I've never discussed if you're a DO or MD at anywhere. Just try posting less in the forums so that maybe next time you'll recall whom you're referring to.

Anyway, where did you match? What's your "highly" points to DO students as a 4th year exiting MD student?

you're right. the clowns in this forum are starting to blend together ....now i remember you're the one with the broken english who doesnt understand idioms and that other guy is the one who doesn't understand sarcasm and couldn't figure out if i was an MD or DO .....got it.

as i said before....not even sure to who anymore... this has nothing to do with me.

 

[Dr Dazzle]

you're right. the clowns in this forum are starting to blend together ....now i remember you're the one with the broken english who doesnt understand idioms and that other guy is the one who doesn't understand sarcasm and couldn't figure out if i was an MD or DO .....got it.

as i said before....not even sure to who anymore... this has nothing to do with me.

Jeez people y'all are going to be doctors. Act like it!

 

[DrEnderW]

Literally every thread on the sub-forum has turned in skinMD making purposely inflammatory comments and people responding to them in a fluster.

SkidMD... grow up and stop inciting argument on an internet forum. I wouldn't want you to be my doctor with your personality, regardless of your degree.

Everyone else... ignore kids that try to derail every osteopathic thread.

tl;dr every thread on this forum the last month:

The DO degree can create some "roadblocks", especially in academically oriented residencies and fellowships. However, with a certain degree of commitment, it is likely that you'll be able to peruse what you want to do in the end. It's not like every MD graduate automatically gets a neurosurgery residency as MGH.

Stop ruining every thread with these arguments.

 

[abolt18]

You guys can all hate on skinMD but he/she has a fantastic avatar!

 

[LovelyBRass]

Great point... so why are you here again? I'm pretty sure the OP never asked for your opinion and pretty close to everyone has made it clear that your OPINION of tiers, competitiveness, and whatever else doesn't really matter to any of us in the DO forum. If you wanna play DO basher how bout you just go play in traffic or talk to someone who actually appreciates your nonsense? Thanks 😉

lawl the only reason his opinion "doesn't matter" is because you don't like it

 

[group_theory]

Please focus the discussion of this thread towards the topic and refrain from derailing this thread about discussions of SDN members.

 

[JGimpel]

Lot's of food for thought in this thread. I can personally vouch for the awesomeness of the "Ignore" function and that's all I'll say about that.

Medical education is imperfect in many ways. It also is highly variable due to the amount of different interactions with students and hospital systems, the staff, adjuncts/staff/locums/fellow/attending, that happens to be working at the time the student is there and what kind of day/week/month the staff is having while on service. As I've said before, medical education is what you make of it.

If the opportunity to first assist in any procedure is given, one could either argue that it's extra work in the workup and follow up of the patient or see it as an opportunity to learn side-by-side with your attending/resident.

You can see many of the same presentations of familiar pathologies during your time on a particular service. You could look at it as a short road to boredom that you have to drive every day or a way to fine-tune the skills you'll need for the majority of the cases in that specialty, should you decide you want to pursue it later.

Make every day in your core clerkships count. They're most likely to go on your transcript as an actual grade while the electives may just reflect a pass/fail and an important narrative evaluation which residencies may use to have you stand out from the others you're competing with for the same spots.

4th year should be your chance to show what you've learned in your medical education thus far. This includes the ability to be actively listening to your attending for his clinical pearls to learn from. I asked an attending to repeat the part of the talk I missed due to any of a couple different reasons and his exact words were "you're a fourth year, you shouldn't need anything repeated for you." Listen and learn how to listen.

I'm proud to be a DO and I found my curriculum and clerkships very challenging, but the most rewarding time of my life and I wouldn't change it, warts and all, if I had the opportunity to do it again.

 

[Silent Cool]

Again, MD=/MD=/MD; There are plenty of posts on IM forums from allo students about how their "school name/rank" "prevented them" from getting interviews or match at top places. Going to a top allo school will obviously help. There is very little difference in outcomes (at least for IM) between a bottom tiered allo school and an established osteo school (this is a more appropriate comparison as their entering student profile is fairly similar). Assuming equal grades and CV. Now this is NOT to say that the match list is identical, but to say that equal performance/CV will essentially get you to the same place from a bottom tiered allo and an established DO school, especially in IM. Yes, there is always that guy/gal in the class that matches to MGH from a bottom tiered allo school but that's not the rule and it's not for the average student (i.e. 80+% of the class).

Sorry, but I strongly disagree with this. The matchlists bear this out. Rosalind Franklin's (a "low tier" allo school) is great year after year.

 

[thethethe]

As a 3rd year going on to 4th, which top tier hospitals have been known to take DO students? So far I know Cleveland and Mayo Clinic does.

 

[cliquesh]

Apparently University of Texas southwestern, univ of Pitt and univ. Penn each took 1 DO this year. That's about it. State programs will probably be your best bet. There are some good state programs, like Indiana University and university of Colorado, that take DOs for IM.

 

[DocEspana]

UMass did too.

 

[Butterfly23]

Do Montefiore/Albert Einstein IM take DOs???
just curious

PS: I am only talking about Montefiore/Einstein program. Not Jacobi/einstein, Beth Israel/einstein, Wakefield Montefiore/Einstein

 

[DocEspana]

Do Montefiore/Albert Einstein IM take DOs???
just curious

PS: I am only talking about Montefiore/Einstein program. Not Jacobi/einstein, Beth Israel/einstein, Wakefield Montefiore/Einstein

Montefiore EM did. I know that my school has someone in the "Einstein" hospitals in IM, but I couldn't tell you if it was Monte or Jacobi or BI or what.

 

[235009]

Do Montefiore/Albert Einstein IM take DOs???
just curious

PS: I am only talking about Montefiore/Einstein program. Not Jacobi/einstein, Beth Israel/einstein, Wakefield Montefiore/Einstein

Monte was strangely not forthcoming with their list of their residents. They didn't include it in their interview day material. Typically programs do this to try and hide the fact that they have DOs and caribs. However I don't think that's the case at Monte. It's more likely they're trying to keep applicants from contacting potentially unhappy residents.

 

[DrEnderW]

Typically programs do this to try and hide the fact that they have DOs and caribs. However I don't think that's the case at Monte. It's more likely they're trying to keep applicants from contacting potentially unhappy residents.

Yeah, I wouldn't want to match into the specialty and geographical region of my choice if a physician with different letter initials shared the same hospital in the past as me either. Gotta keep that under wraps!

 

[Jamie561]

I should point out why this is true (in SkinMD's mind). See SkinMD regularly makes comments about how you can judge competitiveness and "prestige" (whatever that means) by how many DO's are in a program. He also thinks that DO's have a finite ceiling of "mid-tier" residency match ability.

It's a natural extension of that logic to thereby determine that if a "top tier" residency program accepts a DO, they instantly relegate themselves to "mid-tier" status.

There's no point in arguing it with him, he refuses to acknowledge his error whenever anyone calls him on the mat for his BS. It's best to just let him fade away.

Is this the kind of logical fallacy they teach you in DO school?

Let me help: the statement "DOs only match at mid tier programs" is not equivalent to "only mid tier programs match DOs"

 

[SLC]

Is this the kind of logical fallacy they teach you in DO school?

Let me help: the statement "DOs only match at mid tier programs" is not equivalent to "only mid tier programs match DOs"

Try reading that again...

I didn't say that, nor did I imply it. I was just poking fun at Skin's notion that a residency's "tier" should be judged on how many DO's it has. As opposed to...you know...the training the residents get.



Edit: And SkinMD's most recent post in this thread seems to indicate that my assessment was correct.

Monte was strangely not forthcoming with their list of their residents. They didn't include it in their interview day material. Typically programs do this to try and hide the fact that they have DOs and caribs. However I don't think that's the case at Monte. It's more likely they're trying to keep applicants from contacting potentially unhappy residents.

 

[intotherain]

As a 3rd year going on to 4th, which top tier hospitals have been known to take DO students? So far I know Cleveland and Mayo Clinic does.

several quality university programs that have taken DO in the past for IM:
UPenn (1st this year), Yale, Temple, RWJ, UMinn, OHSU, Dartmouth, UVM, VCU, GW, Louisville, Georgetown, and others I can't remember off the top of my head.

 

[SLC]

several quality university programs that have taken DO in the past for IM:
UPenn (1st this year), Yale, Temple, RWJ, UMinn, OSHU, Dartmouth, UVM, VCU, GW, Louisville, Georgetown, and others I can't remember off the top of my head.

University of Utah and University of Arizona (those are some I've got my eyes on).

 

[235009]

Edit: And SkinMD's most recent post in this thread seems to indicate that my assessment was correct.

just stating facts. sorry if they hurt your feelings.

 

[SLC]

just stating facts. sorry if they hurt your feelings.

No hurt feelings at all. Keep on stating them man!

👍

 

[dozitgetchahi]

several quality university programs that have taken DO in the past for IM:
UPenn (1st this year), Yale, Temple, RWJ, UMinn, OHSU, Dartmouth, UVM, VCU, GW, Louisville, Georgetown, and others I can't remember off the top of my head.

Indiana, Iowa, UIC, Wake Forest, Rochester, CCF, OSU, Loyola, and many, many others.

 

[GlowInTheDark]

University of Utah and University of Arizona (those are some I've got my eyes on).

U of U seems like a bunch of DO haters to me. What's your experience been like with them?

 

[cliquesh]

U of U seems like a bunch of DO haters to me. What's your experience been like with them?

I know classmates of mine were invited to interview for anesthesia, pathology and internal medicine at Utah.

 

[swlabr1980]

U of U seems like a bunch of DO haters to me. What's your experience been like with them?

They're not haters, but the IM department explicitly requires higher USMLE scores from DO applicants than from US MD applicants.

 

[Dr Dazzle]

They're not haters, but the IM department explicitly requires higher USMLE scores from DO applicants than from US MD applicants.

How much higher?

 

[GlowInTheDark]

I know classmates of mine were invited to interview for anesthesia, pathology and internal medicine at Utah.

They're not haters, but the IM department explicitly requires higher USMLE scores from DO applicants than from US MD applicants.

Good to know. It seemed like the only DOs I could find in residency slots were IM and PMRs

 

[SLC]

U of U seems like a bunch of DO haters to me. What's your experience been like with them?

I went there for undergrad, I'm from Salt Lake City, my family and that of my wife all live there. I worked in the hospital for a while and know a lot of faculty up there.

I agree that they seem a little tough to crack as a DO, but they're the only game in-town for IM, and the UofU hospital system is an excellent one. If I could get a spot there I'd honestly take it over just about anywhere else.