Getting into a good residency

[lalamed]

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I will be beginning medical school this August. I am very lost and do not know much about what must be done in Med school to get into the residency of your choice.

I know that for admission into undergrad and grad schools, research, volunteer work/activities, recommendations, and a high GPA/SAT/MCAT are necessary. What are residency programs looking for when they make their decisions?

 

[Mr hawkings]

I will be beginning medical school this August. I am very lost and do not know much about what must be done in Med school to get into the residency of your choice.

I know that for admission into undergrad and grad schools, research, volunteer work/activities, recommendations, and a high GPA/SAT/MCAT are necessary. What are residency programs looking for when they make their decisions?

Do a search on this forum. You'll find plenty of information. The topic has been discussed at length

 

[Pinkertinkle]

Here's wut u gotta do buddy:

1. Nail Step 1
2. Honor as many third year rotations as possible
3. Figure out what specialty you want to go into as early as possible
4. Cozy up to that particular department in your school through research projects with important faculty members, hopefully yielding publications as lead author
5. Do well on the fourth year home and away clerkships in your specialty of choice.
6. Get some letters of rec from these important faculty members, which will surely be awesome since you've worked with for years now.
7. ???
8. MATCH

Edit: Also do some volunteering/humanitarian stuff now and then. Don't let it be something that takes more than a couple hours a month unless you're genuinely interested in it. Just something you can put down on your residency application.

 

[bodonid]

Here's wut u gotta do buddy:

1. Nail Step 1
2. Honor as many third year rotations as possible
3. Figure out what specialty you want to go into as early as possible
4. Cozy up to that particular department in your school through research projects with important faculty members, hopefully yielding publications as lead author
5. Do well on the fourth year home and away clerkships in your specialty of choice.
6. Get some letters of rec from these important faculty members, which will surely be awesome since you've worked with for years now.
7. ???
8. MATCH

Edit: Also do some volunteering/humanitarian stuff now and then. Don't let it be something that takes more than a couple hours a month unless you're genuinely interested in it. Just something you can put down on your residency application.

underpants gnomes!

 

[WellWornLad]

Loads of in-depth, extremely specific information, right from the horse's mouth:

http://www.nrmp.org/data/index.html

Of special interest is the Program Director Survery near the bottom.

 

[asmallchild]

Here's wut u gotta do buddy:

1. Nail Step 1
2. Honor as many third year rotations as possible
3. Figure out what specialty you want to go into as early as possible
4. Cozy up to that particular department in your school through research projects with important faculty members, hopefully yielding publications as lead author
5. Do well on the fourth year home and away clerkships in your specialty of choice.
6. Get some letters of rec from these important faculty members, which will surely be awesome since you've worked with for years now.
7. ???
8. MATCH

Edit: Also do some volunteering/humanitarian stuff now and then. Don't let it be something that takes more than a couple hours a month unless you're genuinely interested in it. Just something you can put down on your residency application.

Remember it's not always what you know, sometimes it's who you know. Even in medicine. 👍

 

[Law2Doc]

I will be beginning medical school this August. I am very lost and do not know much about what must be done in Med school to get into the residency of your choice.

I know that for admission into undergrad and grad schools, research, volunteer work/activities, recommendations, and a high GPA/SAT/MCAT are necessary. What are residency programs looking for when they make their decisions?

Agree with the others. Forget about undergrad stuff like volunteer work. You need high Step I score, good 3rd year evals/grades, good sub-I evals, solid away rotations, and people in the field you are going into that will write you nice letters if not actually pick up the phone on your behalf. Research is nice to have, and more important the more competitive the field you are shooting for. The rest is pretty secondary.

I would suggest however, that you are just starting, and are likely to change your mind about what field you are going to want to go into about a dozen times between now and when you actually have to apply. You really have very little basis for making a decision before third year rotations when you actually get to see a number of fields and will be surprised at what you like or dislike.

So do what you can to do well in courses, not because the grades the first couple of years are critical, but because the info is going to be on Step 1 (which is critical) or may earn you brownie points when being pimped in the clinical years (also important). And maybe plan on some research the summer after first year, just to have something started. Beyond that, I'd say there's not a whole lot you'd want to do during first year.

 

[DrJosephKim]

It's all about your letters (and yes, sometimes a phone call to the program director from your favorite faculty member)

 

[DocWalken]

So do what you can to do well in courses, not because the grades the first couple of years are critical, but because the info is going to be on Step 1 (which is critical) or may earn you brownie points when being pimped in the clinical years (also important). And maybe plan on some research the summer after first year, just to have something started. Beyond that, I'd say there's not a whole lot you'd want to do during first year.

What I'm confused about is how do you decide what field/subject to do research in if you're not completely set on a specialty or your mind might change? Wouldn't it be a lot more advantageous to have meaningful research in the field you're applying to for residency than research dealing with some other specialty? I guess I see how research in radiology or something could be related to surgery, but it seems like residencies would be more impressed with research in their field. I'd like to do research summer after 1st year and I would like it to be something I stay involved in and don't want it to be time wasted (as far as residency applications go) because it was related to a different specialty.

 

[Veg]

The people interveiwing you for residency are typically in acedemic medicine. These people like research. They like research in thier own feild better than others, but research in general is a good thing. If you're truely interested in research you'll likely do more later once you nail down what you're interested in. You'll also have the advantage of knowing how your IRB works and have a better idea of what hoops you have to jump through.

Just go with something you're interested in (or a PI that looks like they'd be pleasant to work with). I suppose you could look for something fairly general that you could relate to any feild. For instance, I hear smoking is bad for you.

 

[chessknt]

It's all about your letters (and yes, sometimes a phone call to the program director from your favorite faculty member)

This confuses me. How often are you really working with the dept chair? Is the dept chair going to have to write 20 personalized LoRs for everyone who is applying to that specialty every year? That seems ridiculous.

 

[VMSmith]

You don't necessarily work with the department chair - most will just want to sit down and talk to you for a little while.

 

[Mr hawkings]

This confuses me. How often are you really working with the dept chair? Is the dept chair going to have to write 20 personalized LoRs for everyone who is applying to that specialty every year? That seems ridiculous.

Thats the point. Thats why it catches an interviewer's eye if a dept chair wrote you a glowing recommendation.
it makes people think you stood out somehow above the rest of the people you rotated with. Or at least you were e better butt kisser.

 

[Pinkertinkle]

What I'm confused about is how do you decide what field/subject to do research in if you're not completely set on a specialty or your mind might change? Wouldn't it be a lot more advantageous to have meaningful research in the field you're applying to for residency than research dealing with some other specialty? I guess I see how research in radiology or something could be related to surgery, but it seems like residencies would be more impressed with research in their field. I'd like to do research summer after 1st year and I would like it to be something I stay involved in and don't want it to be time wasted (as far as residency applications go) because it was related to a different specialty.

You can either lean towards a general category or shoot for the most competitive specialty you're interested in.

 

[coldweatherblue]

What I'm confused about is how do you decide what field/subject to do research in if you're not completely set on a specialty or your mind might change? Wouldn't it be a lot more advantageous to have meaningful research in the field you're applying to for residency than research dealing with some other specialty?

It's probably a little bit of a plus to have research in the field in which you're applying.. problem is after first year it's pretty hard to know for sure what you want to do. I chose my research based solely on, 1. The likelihood of getting published and 2. How much I liked the attending/residents/lab.

 

[DocWalken]

Is it just me or does it seem a little strange how when you're applying to medical school you write this whole application, ps, do all this stuff related to medicine, and have to convince admissions that medicine is truly your passion that you've loved for so long and are so sure of wanting to do forever, etc...yet when you apply to residency, what are you supposed to say? "Oh ever since three months ago when I did a month of _____ I knew it was my life's passion."

I guess most students are younger when they're applying to medical school. Also, getting into the profession of medicine from whatever else is probably a bigger difference than selecting one field of medicine from everything else. And I guess you might find different aspects you like from the basic sciences, have early clinical stuff or whatever. I would think it would be helpful for schools to encourage more shadowing and such for students early on..or do they already do this and I'm just mistaken?

 

[Law2Doc]

What I'm confused about is how do you decide what field/subject to do research in if you're not completely set on a specialty or your mind might change? Wouldn't it be a lot more advantageous to have meaningful research in the field you're applying to for residency than research dealing with some other specialty? I guess I see how research in radiology or something could be related to surgery, but it seems like residencies would be more impressed with research in their field. I'd like to do research summer after 1st year and I would like it to be something I stay involved in and don't want it to be time wasted (as far as residency applications go) because it was related to a different specialty.

Well, I agree with you that if you somehow have a crystal ball and can know what's going to excite you after your rotations, then targeted research would be best. But assuming you don't, then do something general with a chance of getting published, and keep in mind that if you choose something competitive, you may want to consider taking off a year before graduation to research if you feel your ERAS is a bit light for the desired field. More and more people seem to be doing this each year.

 

[penguin24]

You seem to think that being a surgeon/pediatrician/pathologist/whatever are totally different, but really we're all docs who use medicine to improve the health of others.

 

[jester384]

hi, i had similar questions as you. there are lots of good posts on this forum that i found so you might try searching for "getting into residency" or "residency application". it was really good to hear what already-accepted people did to get into their residency, some people don't care and won't mind posting their application info. gl.

 

[Cirrus83]

Win the lottery and donate $10 million to the residency program of your choice. And not anonymously.