How competitive is FAER?

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You're asking about the FAER summer med student fellowship, right? They do have separate fellowships for residents and academic faculty.

I did the FAER summer med student fellowship and had a blast. During my FAER MSARF fellowship, I spent 8 weeks on an clinical project (not bench-lab/basic science work). During a typical day, I'd spend roughly 50% of my time in the operating rooms shadowing on clinical cases, and roughly 50% doing data collection / statistics for my project. I ended up writing up a paper on my findings, and was chosen to give an oral presentation at the national ASA meeting on my study. The MSARF program certainly helps if you're applying for research-heavy anesthesiology residency programs. Stipend is roughly $3200, plus travel expenses to the ASA. I highly recommend the program.

The FAER MSARF selection process goes:

1. in December/January, FAER publishes an online list of ~100 research projects hosted by researchers at institutions around the US
2. Applicants fill out an application form, complete with essays, MCAT scores, and undergraduate GPA records. They also look through the FAER website and select 4 projects that they'd like to work on.
3. Applicants submit their completed application to FAER
4. A committee at FAER selects 40 students
5. Each of the 40 accepted students are matched to a research project, based on their 4 ranked projects

I'm not sure how many people apply for the program, so I'm not sure how competitive the program is. Feel free to PM if you have any other questions -- it's always good to see people who are interested in anesthesiology 🙂
 
checkov said:
You're asking about the FAER summer med student fellowship, right? They do have separate fellowships for residents and academic faculty.

I'm not sure how many people apply for the program, so I'm not sure how competitive the program is. Feel free to PM if you have any other questions -- it's always good to see people who are interested in anesthesiology 🙂
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Hi, checkov. Thanks for the info! That's definitely what I was looking for. I also browsed through past participants, and it seems like they came from a good variety of schools (some DO schools too). I was kinda worried that everyone would be from Harvard and Yale or something. Definitely gonna shoot for this for M4.
 
I'm gonna shoot for that M1! 🙂
 
doctor712 said:
I'm gonna shoot for that M1! 🙂
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You have a good point. Checkov and I have been PMing, and he pointed out that 8 weeks is a pretty large chunk of time during your M4 electives. Plus, I'm thinking of doing it at a novel location where I probably wouldn't rank. (In other words, I'd probably try to go to Oregon or Cali, but I'm committed to the East Coast for residency.)

So, yeah, I'm leaning more towards the summer of M1 as well. Plus, I might have a kid by M4 (Yikes! 😱), so that's gonna make living somewhere totally random for 2 months a lot harder.
 
GoodmanBrown said:
You have a good point. Checkov and I have been PMing, and he pointed out that 8 weeks is a pretty large chunk of time during your M4 electives. Plus, I'm thinking of doing it at a novel location where I probably wouldn't rank. (In other words, I'd probably try to go to Oregon or Cali, but I'm committed to the East Coast for residency.)

So, yeah, I'm leaning more towards the summer of M1 as well. Plus, I might have a kid by M4 (Yikes! 😱), so that's gonna make living somewhere totally random for 2 months a lot harder.
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I did it as well. Unless the program has changed, it is only available between first and second year.

Having just completed interviews, I highly recommend it. Definitely a helpful experience. You are welcome to contact me as well.
 
How come on the FAER website for this Medical Student Anesthesia Research Fellowship there is a requirement that

"Students must be enrolled full-time at a Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME) accredited medical school."

Then the next sentence reads

"Additionally, students must remain enrolled in an MD or DO program throughout the fellowship."

DO programs are NOT LCME accredited so I'm confused...
 
okayplayer said:
I did it as well. Unless the program has changed, it is only available between first and second year.

Having just completed interviews, I highly recommend it. Definitely a helpful experience. You are welcome to contact me as well.
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Thanks, guys! I really appreciate the help. I think I might have let this program completely pass me by without the help from the forum. I'm pretty convinced M4 is too late (if even possible) for this. So, yeah, it looks like maybe next summer I'll be doing some fun stuff on the West Coast! :xf:
 
GoodmanBrown said:
Thanks, guys! I really appreciate the help. I think I might have let this program completely pass me by without the help from the forum. I'm pretty convinced M4 is too late (if even possible) for this. So, yeah, it looks like maybe next summer I'll be doing some fun stuff on the West Coast! :xf:
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M4 is not possible:

http://faer.org/programs/students/medical.html

"Therefore, students who are currently in their last year of medical school are ineligible."
 
NK1Positive said:
M4 is not possible:

http://faer.org/programs/students/medical.html

"Therefore, students who are currently in their last year of medical school are ineligible."
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Well, it's kinda complicated. If you're an M4, you can't apply because you'd be out of school before you could do the fellowship. However, if you apply during M3, to do the fellowship during your M4 year, I think you'd be okay.

I searched pretty extensively and couldn't find a specific timeframe for doing the fellowship. So, I don't know if you have to do the fellowship in the summer or if there are options to do it in the fall. If it's possible for the fall, then you could do it as an elective, I think. Not sure.
 
Yea..I applied for the FAER program too and it looks like they received tons of applications so we won't hear back until march 5th.
I wonder how they're gonna select the students cause the application is pretty short. gpa? mcat? experiences?
 
I did the FAER medical student fellowship. It was a great experience. I have heard, though I am not positive, that they will only take people after their first year. The point of the fellowship is to give interested medical students a chance to experience anesthesiology through research and OR experience. It would sorta defeat the purpose to allow fourth year medical students to do this fellowship because at that point they've already applied to anesthesia. Also, I am pretty sure it can only be done during the summer. The summer before fourth year is part of 3rd year when you are likely doing required rotations, or the beginning of fourth year when you should be being sub-I's, working on your application and getting letters of recommendation, etc.

I would guess they pick people based on MCAT scores, research experience, extracurriculars, etc. However I would also guess that they pick people based on ability to pair a student with a department's research program.

Any other questions PM me. Good luck!
 
I did this program post M1 yr during the summer and it was an amazing experience. If you want to go into anesthesia, even better to be participating in research early on that will guarantee a poster presentation. I was lucky an was able to turn my project into a eventual paper as well. I imagine it has gotten more competitive now compared to 2008, I think there were around 100-150 applications when I applied according to Mary Schrandt. Good luck to you all who are applying, and hit me up with any questions about the fellowship 😀
 
Adelaide Nick said:
I did this program post M1 yr during the summer and it was an amazing experience. If you want to go into anesthesia, even better to be participating in research early on that will guarantee a poster presentation. I was lucky an was able to turn my project into a eventual paper as well. I imagine it has gotten more competitive now compared to 2008, I think there were around 100-150 applications when I applied according to Mary Schrandt. Good luck to you all who are applying, and hit me up with any questions about the fellowship 😀
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Does anyone have advice for applying to projects? Checkov mentioned they decide partially based on the projects you applied to. So, if I apply to projects where everyone else applied, it's going to be more competitive than if I applied at a place where fewer people did, correct?

So, in essence, if I only put down projects at Stanford, I'm going to have a tougher time getting in than if I put projects in for Oregon Health & Sciences, right? Or is my logic here flawed?
 
I was under the impression that we were supposed to list sites and then figure out the specific project after we get the fellowship.

I called the office a bit earlier and they told me that they will be sending out the notifications via email early next week. I guess the waiting continues.

Does anyone know what aspects of the application they seem to stress over others?
 
enwhyyouser said:
I was under the impression that we were supposed to list sites and then figure out the specific project after we get the fellowship.

I called the office a bit earlier and they told me that they will be sending out the notifications via email early next week. I guess the waiting continues.

Does anyone know what aspects of the application they seem to stress over others?
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My bad. I haven't really looked closely as I'm 1-year out from applying. So, for sites, is it better to choose a less desirable one?
 
GoodmanBrown said:
My bad. I haven't really looked closely as I'm 1-year out from applying. So, for sites, is it better to choose a less desirable one?
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From what I understand, your project site choice (Stanford vs. Oregon) does not affect the competitiveness of your application.

I'm under the impression that the selection committee chooses individuals on their individual merits (i.e. essay, GPA, MCAT, research experience), and only worries about site placement after they've finalized a pool of candidates who (1) the FAER selection accepts, and (2) who have individually written back to accept the FAER fellowship offer. Case in point I only finalized my project / site placement after being accepted by the FAER program and sending in my letter of intent to join the fellowship. Also keep in mind that most residency programs don't have a problem facilitating medical student research -- I'm sure that Stanford / MGH / Mayo could easily provide solid research experiences for all 50 FAER students, should it be necessary.
 
I've been accepted into the MSARF program for this summer (I'm an M1) and it looks from the comments on this thread that everyone had a really positive experience with it, which is great. I did not get my first choice (on the west coast) but did get my second choice (in the south - I applied not based on location, but based on projects interesting to me).

Anyway, just looking to see if there's any other reviews/advice people can give about the program. I'm particularly interested in critical care, but looking forward to the OR experience as well. Thanks!

P.S. There were 192 apps this year, don't know how many were accepted, but Mary Schrandt kept saying the number was unprecedented, hence the delay on their usual notification of acceptance.
 
San Marzano said:
No kidding congrats! I called yesterday and she told me they wouldn't be emailing notices of acceptance until next week. Oh well, guess it's time to start making alternative plans for this summer.
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Don't lose hope yet. I've not gotten a formal acceptance yet, but basically I was accepted to another fellowship that had a 48 hour turnaround time, so I called earlier this week to see my status, and they notified I was accepted to this so I could make a decision on which one to choose (I'm choosing FAER, which from this thread looks like a good decision) 🙂
 
sunset823 said:
Don't lose hope yet. I've not gotten a formal acceptance yet, but basically I was accepted to another fellowship that had a 48 hour turnaround time, so I called earlier this week to see my status, and they notified I was accepted to this so I could make a decision on which one to choose (I'm choosing FAER, which from this thread looks like a good decision) 🙂
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If you don't mind posting, what other fellowship did you apply to? What other M1 summer research opportunities are there for anesthesiology?
 
i'm tempted to just call them
 
I'm a first year in a similar position as Sunset823; I called Mrs. Schrandt so I could make a decision, and it sounds like the office is still extremely busy. Still no official notifications, but they are coming soon.

Hope this helps.
 
just got mine too! congrats, its going to be an awesome summer
 
Just got one also. First choice! Very excited about this summer. Congrats everyone.
 
GoodmanBrown said:
If you don't mind posting, what other fellowship did you apply to? What other M1 summer research opportunities are there for anesthesiology?
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Congrats to everyone who got it today, hope you're happy with your match, even though I didn't get my first choice I'm very happy with the projects I could get involved with 🙂

In response to this, I didn't apply only in anesthesiology, I also applied to NIDDK (diabetes) and Sloan-Kettering (cancer/radiology), but out of the three anes is the field I'm most interested in, so it worked out well for me
 
Did everyone get accepted today? I am currently waiting to hear back still. I am wondering if more will be sent tomorrow.
 
i'm still waiting too
 
phew....finally received my acceptance....glad that I called the office today. They sent out my acceptance letter last week to the wrong email address 😱
 
I got my acceptance email last week too! Really excited, it sounds awesome-shadowing + clinical research experience + spend time at a different institution + publishing and presentation opportunities. What sites are y'all working at? I'll be at Yale.
 
sunset823 said:
Anyway, just looking to see if there's any other reviews/advice people can give about the program. I'm particularly interested in critical care, but looking forward to the OR experience as well. Thanks!
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I did FAER during the summer after my first year also and it was a really good experience like everyone else said. They have their own poster session, so you'll get to present at the ASA meeting. I stayed in touch with my PI and will get a letter for my residency apps, which is cool. Also, we published a paper. I want to do academic anesthesiology, and I think FAER helped get me going in the right direction. Even if you want to do PP, it can't hurt you to do some research though. Congrats and have fun this summer.
 
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