How difficult is it to get a California residency as an East coast DO?

[carolinablue]

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So here is my quick story....

I got accepted into a program in the east coast and am very excited about starting in August...for the past 2 months I have been living in hollywood, California and just kind of relaxing/reading/working a bit...I just decided to come here randomly and got a sublet from craigslist...i absolutely love california and sometimes wish i got into a school out here...but nonetheless I am very grateful to be even IN a school at all. My question is....how competitive and difficult is it to get a residency in southern california being a D.O from the south east??? My first choice right now is psychiatry (or sports medicine/family), so I know that in general the specialty i want to go into so far isn't extremely competitive...

The school i'm going to has rotation sites basically in the same state...around the regions of virginia, NC, SC, atlanta..ect...would landing a residency spot in lets say...LA, Santa Monica, OC, ect be extremely difficult to do?
I would love to be able to live in cali when i was in my 20's and without any kids running around...it would make me very happy.
I understand that for the next 4 years I gotta buckle down and focus on just getting great board scores...but i would have a peace of mind knowing that in only 4 years i could potentially have the option of coming back to Cali..stay for 3 years instead of 3 months
thanks 🙂

 

[ShyRem]

You can get a residency anywhere in the country. Several of my fellow students from Maine went pretty far away, with even some in California. We had a fairly healthy cohort end up in Michigan, some in Colorado, Arizona, Texas... all over.

You just need to match there.

 

[DocEspana]

Wanna make the whole thing easier to accomplish? Go do some 4th year rotations in Cali. Figure out where the best spot in your 4th year schedule is (prob cant figure it out til part way into 3rd year) and plan to go to Cali for 3-4 months. Go there and visit 3-4 hospitals within driving distance of each other. If you have experience at hospitals (and dont embarrass yourself) you're looking better than someone applying from out of the blue.

People travel way outside of their schools home region in 4th (and some 3rd) year. It should give you a leg up. The somewhat nonchalance ShyRem approached it with is totally appropriate. I'm just augmenting it with my additional point that since "getting the match" can be hard, being seen there is a great way to get better odds.

 

[carolinablue]

Wanna make the whole thing easier to accomplish? Go do some 4th year rotations in Cali. Figure out where the best spot in your 4th year schedule is (prob cant figure it out til part way into 3rd year) and plan to go to Cali for 3-4 months. Go there and visit 3-4 hospitals within driving distance of each other. If you have experience at hospitals (and dont embarrass yourself) you're looking better than someone applying from out of the blue.

People travel way outside of their schools home region in 4th (and some 3rd) year. It should give you a leg up. The somewhat nonchalance ShyRem approached it with is totally appropriate. I'm just augmenting it with my additional point that since "getting the match" can be hard, being seen there is a great way to get better odds.

and how difficult would it be to get rotations here in cali?? or did you mean i actually go to hospitals right now and talk to them personally and see what they recommend? that seems a little far fetched and i doubt anyone would speak to a kid who isnt even in medical school YET (starting in august), but if it could potentially help me out i would definetly do it.

 

[carolinablue]

You can get a residency anywhere in the country. Several of my fellow students from Maine went pretty far away, with even some in California. We had a fairly healthy cohort end up in Michigan, some in Colorado, Arizona, Texas... all over.

You just need to match there.

i've read several of your posts here on these forums, you seem to consistently give fairly solid good advice 🙂
im just curious, are you a resident? if so, what specialty?
thanks 🙂

 

[DocEspana]

and how difficult would it be to get rotations here in cali?? or did you mean i actually go to hospitals right now and talk to them personally and see what they recommend? that seems a little far fetched and i doubt anyone would speak to a kid who isnt even in medical school YET (starting in august), but if it could potentially help me out i would definetly do it.

While rotations can be very competitive to find, ive never heard of anyone having either a DO-based hard time, or a hard time at all, getting the general idea of what they wanted rotation-wise. By that I mean that if someone wants to 'go back to cali for a few months' or 'go to a competitive ophtho rotation' or similar somewhat broad goals, they can do it. I can't guarantee you can do 4 months of R/O/A/D at UCLA's hospital, but I've never heard of anyone having any issues if they are willing to try a few venues and generally pursue a broad goal.

You want to go to Cali? What you do is go to school for your first two years and just keep all the hospitals in cali in the back of your head. Then you look at your 3rd year schedule: if you have time off at the very end of 3rd year you can do this. If you don't (most schools dont) you'll have to do it all 4th year, when your rotations are almost entirely up to you to get. Either way you pick out 2 or 3 or 4 months consecutively and you do applications through a mixture of online apps and phone calls. All these hospitals have simple processes to do the application (Though some do require a phone call or transcript first). You apply for 1 or 2 hard ones for the first month (since they are harder) and then when you know where you will be, apply for somewhat easier rotations in hospitals near the first one. In this way you can block out 2, 3 or 4 months in a state of your choice, get some face time with a few specific hospitals, and some recommendations from the same hospitals in the state you want.

no need to personally travel to CA to do anything. This whole thing is a very painless process done online if you just act as early as possible (1-6 months before hand is usually good to get competitive stuff. earlier is always better)

 

[ShyRem]

As my status says under my avatar, I am a resident. I chose IM.

 

[carolinablue]

As my status says under my avatar, I am a resident. I chose IM.

Lollll welll excuusee me I didn't notice your avatar...
Why do residents always seem like their in such a ****ty mood?
Anyways I will keep cali in the back of mind until iys time in about two years.

 

[DocEspana]

Lollll welll excuusee me I didn't notice your avatar...
Why do residents always seem like their in such a ****ty mood?
Anyways I will keep cali in the back of mind until iys time in about two years.

Because residency is grueling, cruel, and if any of us were sane we would have abandoned the career long ago because of the looming shadow of residency.

Thankfully, we are not sane. Some of us even greatly enjoy it.

 

[ShyRem]

Sorry. Didn't mean to be nasty... Just matter of fact. I'm a bit tired... two 24 hour awake periods this weekend due to call. Nothin' like 6 hours sleep between Friday 6am to Sunday 9pm. It's awesome. (actually it is fun, but tiring.)

 

[carolinablue]

Sorry. Didn't mean to be nasty... Just matter of fact. I'm a bit tired... two 24 hour awake periods this weekend due to call. Nothin' like 6 hours sleep between Friday 6am to Sunday 9pm. It's awesome. (actually it is fun, but tiring.)

i honestly have an incredible amount of respect for you...i hope to be that hardworking one day myself

 

[ShyRem]

🙂 fortunately interns will never have to experience such a lovely weekend as the one I had. Y'all will be limited to 16 hours max with at least 1 in 7 days off.

Now as PGY2 or 3s, you can do up to 30 hours at a time, unless they decide to change that too.

Attendings work more than that even. I know several cardiologists whose "weekend call" is 60 hours. They sleep in their office as they do all admits, echos , emergent caths, etc. that occur during their call time. And they're BUSY.

 

[Doctor4Life1769]

🙂 fortunately interns will never have to experience such a lovely weekend as the one I had. Y'all will be limited to 16 hours max with at least 1 in 7 days off.

Now as PGY2 or 3s, you can do up to 30 hours at a time, unless they decide to change that too.

Attendings work more than that even. I know several cardiologists whose "weekend call" is 60 hours. They sleep in their office as they do all admits, echos , emergent caths, etc. that occur during their call time. And they're BUSY.

It really is specialty dependent. Cards is known to be a workhorse specialty.
However, I do get your point. There are no caps in patient admits or work hours when you're an attending (and especially when on call).

 

[carolinablue]

It really is specialty dependent. Cards is known to be a workhorse specialty.
However, I do get your point. There are no caps in patient admits or work hours when you're an attending (and especially when on call).

can someone please tell me what the hell a PGY2 is?!

 

[Doctor4Life1769]

can someone please tell me what the hell a PGY2 is?!

Post-Graduate Year 2 (i.e. 2nd year resident).

 

[carolinablue]

It really is specialty dependent. Cards is known to be a workhorse specialty.
However, I do get your point. There are no caps in patient admits or work hours when you're an attending (and especially when on call).

can someone please tell me what the hell a PGY2 is?!