Gen Surg AND Fellowship strategy?

[finallydoc2b]

I am a 4th year Carib med student (let the snickering begin, lol) from Ross. 4.0 gpa, 245/99.
I am obviously going through gen surg to get to a plastics fellowship.
Should I pick a gen surg program that has a plastics fellowship program or just pick the best gen surg program I can get into even if it does not have a plastics fellow program? Do top tier gen surg programs take FMG with my scores?
Thanks for all your help!

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[Meatwad]

Are you concerned that they are phasing out the Plastics via fellowship route?

 

[Pir8DeacDoc]

I can only speak to this peripherally. However, I imagine it would be tough for you to get a top tier surgical residency. The top programs will have folks with those numbers who are american graduates. However, if you do an away somewhere and make a great impression then that changes things considerably, IMHO.

I suspect you'd be wise to select a program that offers an attached fellowship. They have 5 + years to get to know you. If you do a nice job and get some research with them, they can either keep you on or call up some of their cronies at other programs and help get you a spot. Probably a little tougher to do at a place without a program.

Finally, I'd be concerned about the possibility that plastics fellowships won't be around or will be severely diminished in number by the time you get to that point. I'm not saying don't give it a shot, but make sure you are realistic in your options.

 

[GSresident]

Your best bet is probably to go to a GS residency that has an attached plastics fellowship and wow them. This is, of course, only my opinion. It is entirely possible for you to get a plastics spot if you do really well in your general surgery program, score amazingly on the absite and make good friends with the plastics department wherever you go. The world of academic plastics is filled with people who are not US grads.

 

[beastmaster]

Your best bet is probably to go to a GS residency that has an attached plastics fellowship and wow them. This is, of course, only my opinion. It is entirely possible for you to get a plastics spot if you do really well in your general surgery program, score amazingly on the absite and make good friends with the plastics department wherever you go. The world of academic plastics is filled with people who are not US grads.

According to your own blog, it's harder to get a fellowship (300 apps, 100 spots) than to match directly (159 apps, 89 spots).

 

[Meatwad]

According to your own blog, it's harder to get a fellowship (300 apps, 100 spots) than to match directly (159 apps, 89 spots).

Well, that depends on the quality of applicants in each pool, doesn't it? If you have 159 all-stars competing for 89 spots vs a mix of stellar, good, and decent candidates going for only 100 spots, if you are a real sud, you have a better chance applying through the fellowship route.

 

[beastmaster]

That sounds silly dude. I'm sure the senior GS residents are just as much all-star as the 4th year medical students.

 

[Meatwad]

That sounds silly dude. I'm sure the senior GS residents are just as much all-star as the 4th year medical students.

No doubt, they've gone through way worse stuff than med students. AFAIK, though, fellowships still will look at Step 1 scores and stuff, in which case there could be a lot of GS 4th years that can't escape their academic shortcomings from the past, no matter how hard they busted their asses during residency.

Just throwing out possible theories, not saying I agree with them.

 

[Pir8DeacDoc]

I seriously doubt a fellowship cares what you made on Step I. I think much more of fellowship depends on letters of rec and in-service scores. Also, if a few big names at your program go to bat for you, that surely helps. I imagine the strength of your residency program also helps which is related to Step I score so maybe you can connect them tangentially.

 

[GSresident]

Well, that depends on the quality of applicants in each pool, doesn't it? If you have 159 all-stars competing for 89 spots vs a mix of stellar, good, and decent candidates going for only 100 spots, if you are a real sud, you have a better chance applying through the fellowship route.

I have no idea which is actually more competitive. I didn't do the combined/integrated match in medical school so I have no idea what that process is like. From a numbers perspective there are more applicants to fellowships than to combined/integrated programs but I'm not sure what that means.

I looked at all the applications to my program last year and we all had a role in the interview and ranking process. As such I am fairly familiar with what the applicant pool was like last year. We had at least a hundred applicants that looked stellar on paper (at least to me). On the interview days it was really hard to tell who was better or worse - they were all good and I would have been proud to call any of them colleagues. I think everyone that we interviewed matched somewhere.

Incidentally, I wouldn't fall into the trap of thinking that people who do general surgery first instead of a combined program are in any way inferior. Not everyone knows from day 1 of medical school that they want to do plastic surgery. A lot of schools don't even have plastic surgery rotations so unless you are born of a plastic surgery family there is really no way for you to know what plastic surgery is, other than what you see on Nip Tuck and 90210. Besides, someone who has completed a general surgery residency and did well enough to match into a plastics is a proven surgeon and a proven badass. 4th year medical students have a LONG way to go before they can say either of those things.