How can I maximize medical school to be more favorable for a PSTP/Short-track ABIM

[NewDoc2018]

Hello Everyone!

I have recently been considering what I need to focus on to give myself leverage when applying for PSTP/Short-track ABIM residencies. I have prior research experience during a couple years' stint between undergrad and med school working at a large research hospital in translational internal medicine research (few abstracts/oral presentations, 3 publications - 1 first author, 2 second), but am worried that will be nothing compared to the multiple MD/PhD applicants it attracts. Some of my mentors (who did not have PhDs) have short-tracked about 10-15 years ago, but say they are not as aware of what else it takes now besides stellar Step scores and recommendations.

Seeing as I only have the research exposure and publications from before medical school, I am going to increase my involvement in research and output new work. I was waiting to finish my pre-clinicals (per advice of more senior students) before getting involved in research in an internal med field of interest. Besides that, I am very involved in our student run clinic and hope to serve in a leadership role there soon because I enjoy the work and practice interacting with patients.

Is there anything else anyone can recommend? What other activities/pursuits should I invest in to improve my application for PSTP/Short-track ABIM residencies?

Thanks for all the advice!

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[MSTP18]

I ended up not applying to PSTPs because my goal is no longer have the majority of my time spent running an R01 funded lab and thus when I spoke to people about whether or not to do it, I got a pretty strong no. My understanding (from my discussions and my friends who are doing it) is that your research is really the only thing that matters when it comes to getting into the PSTP portion (i.e. you still have to have all the clinical bells and whistles for the main residency program.) The point of these programs is to rush you through clinical training and get you into the lab ASAP. That's why PSTP is the better name because these programs are not "short track" by any means. They just exchange the PGY-3 medicine year for protected research time at the back end. When you interview at these programs, you have extra interviews and will be giving a 30min-1hr talk on the research you have done and the directions you want to go because these programs are essentially an assistant professor farm system. Every residency wants to hire its people, but I think research track residency graduates are even more sought after by any given institution because of the research dollars they can bring in compared to a regular residency graduate.

Is the advice you are getting from more senior students people who are applying/matching into PSTPs? I would think waiting until the end of MS2 to start any work would be a mistake. Balancing research and MS3 is very difficult, and a scholarly year isn't really enough to build up a research portfolio that will be anything close to the MD/PhDs you're competing against (for reference: my pre-MSTP stint is a more productive resume than yours and obviously my PhD is more productive than that, and I was probably in the middle of my class at best with regards to the impressiveness of my PhD work. These programs are small and you will be competing with people like my classmates who have a couple 1st author papers in places like Nature/Science/Cell or double digit papers spread out over top tier specialty journals). I think having waited a bit to adjust to med school is fine but otherwise I would get hooked up with a lab ASAP. It will take you several months to get up to speed so it would be ideal if you could have the entire summer between MS1 and MS2 to work and then maybe keep up a slow trickle of work during MS2. If you are at a school with good MS3 elective time you can use that for more research and then a scholarly year between MS3 and MS4 will also allow you to put in good work. MS4 will provide good time to do work but obviously most of that won't play a huge role in residency matching but will help in terms of setting you up for better research in fellowship.

To be honest, I really don't know how an MD only competes with MD/PhD applicants for these programs especially without devoting 100% of their extra curricular effort to research.

 

[pandaNH4]

As someone who has just gone through the PSTP application and interview process, I disagree with the previous poster. I was in an MSTP at a mid-tier med school and finished with five publications (3 first author, one of those was a review). As almost all PhD students do, I also attended a number of conferences, presented posters, published abstracts, etc. My publications were in relatively high impact journals, but not anywhere near Science/Nature/Cell level. I interviewed at many of the more prestigious PSTPs and very few applicants that I've run into have publications on that level. Most of them do have PhDs (~90%), but certainly not all do.

If you really want to match into a PSTP, it would help to take a year or two off and work in a high powered lab, where you might be able to go to conferences, present posters/abstracts, and maybe publish another manuscript. Even without that, with strong recommendations from research mentors and good med school grades/board scores, you might still be competitive for some of the PSTPs. Your publication record and the letter from your research mentor will be the most important things when you apply to these programs. While you should continue doing it if you enjoy it, working in a student run clinic isn't going to do much for you. Feel free to DM me if you have any specific questions.

 

[MSTP18]

As someone who has just gone through the PSTP application and interview process, I disagree with the previous poster. I was in an MSTP at a mid-tier med school and finished with five publications (3 first author, one of those was a review). As almost all PhD students do, I also attended a number of conferences, presented posters, published abstracts, etc. My publications were in relatively high impact journals, but not anywhere near Science/Nature/Cell level. I interviewed at many of the more prestigious PSTPs and very few applicants that I've run into have publications on that level. Most of them do have PhDs (~90%), but certainly not all do.

If you really want to match into a PSTP, it would help to take a year or two off and work in a high powered lab, where you might be able to go to conferences, present posters/abstracts, and maybe publish another manuscript. Even without that, with strong recommendations from research mentors and good med school grades/board scores, you might still be competitive for some of the PSTPs. Your publication record and the letter from your research mentor will be the most important things when you apply to these programs. While you should continue doing it if you enjoy it, working in a student run clinic isn't going to do much for you. Feel free to DM me if you have any specific questions.

Sorry, I think the point I was making about pub record was not articulated well. I didn't mean that multiple cell/science/nature papers or double digit pubs are "the norm" but when you're interviewing for a program with <10 or <5 spots, those people, plus the typical MD/PhD people (like you or me) can easily crowd out an MD only applicant who is interested in research but simply doesn't have the experience/resume to go toe to toe with the bulk of the applicant pool. This would be especially true of an MD only student who doesn't even get hooked up with a lab until after MS2 with no mention of taking a scholarly year or two (aka OP).

Outside of my poorly worded description of the applicant pool, it doesn't really sound like you disagree with me at all.

 

[pandaNH4]

Sorry, I think the point I was making about pub record was not articulated well. I didn't mean that multiple cell/science/nature papers or double digit pubs are "the norm" but when you're interviewing for a program with <10 or <5 spots, those people, plus the typical MD/PhD people (like you or me) can easily crowd out an MD only applicant who is interested in research but simply doesn't have the experience/resume to go toe to toe with the bulk of the applicant pool. This would be especially true of an MD only student who doesn't even get hooked up with a lab until after MS2 with no mention of taking a scholarly year or two (aka OP).

Outside of my poorly worded description of the applicant pool, it doesn't really sound like you disagree with me at all.

Yeah, you're right. I don't disagree that its very hard to compete with an MD/PhDs research resume as an MD only applicant. Without taking time off to do substantial research (preferably in a big name lab), its absolutely an uphill battle to get looked at seriously for PSTPs.