how difficult is to get into emergency medicine graduating from SGU

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i know emergency medicine is competitive, but is there a chance that if i were to graduate from there what are my chances to get into a program? assuming my board scores were over 80%
 
I'm not sure where you heard that EM is competitive, but if you did decent on your boards and in your classes it doesn't really matter where you go to school. I can imagine the school you went to being fairly unimportant for almost all specialties.
 
I'm not sure where you heard that EM is competitive, but if you did decent on your boards and in your classes it doesn't really matter where you go to school. I can imagine the school you went to being fairly unimportant for almost all specialties.

I disagree. EM is fairly competitive. It certainly isn't impossible, but it has become increasingly popular with US MD students.

I think it is still possible from a place like SGU, but you would have to be VERY flexible with where you do your residency.

I think any US MD school gives you an equal chance, but non US MD schools have it much harder.
 
I'm not sure where you heard that EM is competitive, but if you did decent on your boards and in your classes it doesn't really matter where you go to school. I can imagine the school you went to being fairly unimportant for almost all specialties.

umm, SGU is a Caribbean school... it's going to be much harder to match into EM, I would guess significantly more so than from a US school, but not impossible.
 
well, i dont really care where i go to do my residency for EM as long as i get into the program. im not the most ambitious, but if i couldn't match into it, then i would just be a hospitalist. Thanks for the info guys, im glad people are saying it is possible even from the Caribbean...You guys wouldn't know what board scores would be competitive do you?
 
i know emergency medicine is competitive, but is there a chance that if i were to graduate from there what are my chances to get into a program? assuming my board scores were over 80%

Moving to the caribbean board where people more similarly situated may be able to give you better advice.
 
a ton of people matched into EM this year.. like 34 or something so it seems like it's probably easier to match into EM than Surgery or Anesthesia. but you will need to do better than the average US medical student on your boards and will have to apply widely across the country. but then again who knows what will happen in 4 years. it might get very competitve by then or it might get super un popular.. ER did end so there's no more TV fame to drive people to be ER physicians.

https://baysgu35.sgu.edu/ERD/2009/ResidPost.nsf/BYPGY?OpenView&RestrictToCategory=PGY1&Count=-1
 
umm, SGU is a Caribbean school... it's going to be much harder to match into EM, I would guess significantly more so than from a US school, but not impossible.

Heh. I didn't even read the name of the school. I just assumed since it was pre-allo that it was a US MD school. My bad, yes that changes things.
 
I'm an SGU grad who matched into EM this year. Forgive the generalizations (because of course you can find certain cases of "a guy who only got X score and matched' and 'a girl who got Y score and didn't match"), but I think that it's fair to say that you're going to need dual 99's (or pretty close) to be "competitive". There is an increasing bias against Carib grads, no matter what school you're from. Honestly, I can only see it getting MORE competitive in the years to come.

Also, do remember that there is much more to the application than just your board scores. Experience counts for a lot, as do EM-related extracurriculars. Above all, the interview is the most important thing, but you have to get your foot in the door, first.

Feel free to agree/disagree. This was my two-cents worth.
 
I'm an SGU grad who matched into EM this year. Forgive the generalizations (because of course you can find certain cases of "a guy who only got X score and matched' and 'a girl who got Y score and didn't match"), but I think that it's fair to say that you're going to need dual 99's (or pretty close) to be "competitive". There is an increasing bias against Carib grads, no matter what school you're from. Honestly, I can only see it getting MORE competitive in the years to come.

Also, do remember that there is much more to the application than just your board scores. Experience counts for a lot, as do EM-related extracurriculars. Above all, the interview is the most important thing, but you have to get your foot in the door, first.

Feel free to agree/disagree. This was my two-cents worth.

Just wondering if you had any Canadian clinical experience (cores/electives) ?
 
you can't do cores in Canada, and SGU has no affilited hospitals in Canada. but you have upto 12 weeks to set up unafiliated electives and if you set you a canadian elective yourself then you can do it in canada, you can do 12 weeks of them in canada, but you have to set everything up yourself the school will not help you.
 
The only Canadian experience I had was dating a Canuck or two while I was on the island. Those Canuck-women sure know how to keep their men warm at night. Ha.
 
The head of toxicology at an Emergency Department I volunteered at through undergrad was a graduate of SGU.

He did his residency in Emergency Medicine at Detroit Receiving, Wayne State.

SGU is somewhat like the Gym. You will get out what you put into it.
 
Thanks guys you give me hope. I really really want to do ER (I went to south america to shadow ER doctors and fell in love with it!)

Good luck to all
 
The head of toxicology at an Emergency Department I volunteered at through undergrad was a graduate of SGU.
Try to keep up with the conversation.

The head of that EM dept graduated a long time ago when the specialty was not as competitive as it is now.
 
OK, what if you dont go to SGU and want to get into EM?

As I understand it, you MUST do your EM electives at an EM residency program, and you MUST get at least one SLOR from the EM faculty. SGU has a great track record of placing people into EM residency, and the ther Carib schools - not so much (including Ross)

Grades and scores aside, is it the program where the EM electives were done the major factor - which follows that, is having a SLOR the major factor? So many students say they want to go for EM residency while in clinicals, and many non-SGU students do EM electives where they do not get a SLOR. And, it seems a majority of non-SGU students end up not getting into an EM residency. Does SGU do so well because of the affiliated EM elective locations, which can provide SLORs?

If I can't get a good EM elective with a SLOR, am I sunk?
 
Thanks guys you give me hope. I really really want to do ER (I went to south america to shadow ER doctors and fell in love with it!)

Good luck to all

I think ER in South America might be a lot different that US ER.
I am an SGU student and while doing the hospital visits in grenada- the ER over there is a lot different than in US.
 
OK, what if you dont go to SGU and want to get into EM?

As I understand it, you MUST do your EM electives at an EM residency program, and you MUST get at least one SLOR from the EM faculty. SGU has a great track record of placing people into EM residency, and the ther Carib schools - not so much (including Ross)

Grades and scores aside, is it the program where the EM electives were done the major factor - which follows that, is having a SLOR the major factor? So many students say they want to go for EM residency while in clinicals, and many non-SGU students do EM electives where they do not get a SLOR. And, it seems a majority of non-SGU students end up not getting into an EM residency. Does SGU do so well because of the affiliated EM elective locations, which can provide SLORs?

If I can't get a good EM elective with a SLOR, am I sunk?

SGU students are known to bust their butts and work extremely hard, add that to the solid knowledge base and you can see why we do so well. I know that as a whole SGU students work much harder than US med school students, and it really shows. Not sure how this compares to other carib schools.

Yes it's important where you do your elective because 8 out of 10 times where you do your elective is where you'll end up for residency, that's if you do a great job and they like you. Maybe other schools don't have as many affiliated hospitals that have EM residencies in them. You should only be doing your electives at places that have a residency program in that elective, plenty of ERs have residents rotate through their ER's but don't have EM residencies, that doesn't do a student who wants to go into EM any good because they can't match into that residency. SGU has a ton of affiliated hospitals who have EM residencies and who take 70% or more SGU students into their residencies. This is why SGU does so well in matching people into EM, also one of our Deans is an EM program director in NY I believe, so he helps and mentors people tremendously as well. Lastly an SLOR is a requirement pretty much to match into EM, and you can only get one if you rotate at a hospital that has an EM residency, if you don't have an SLOR chances are you won't match. If your school doesn't have any hospitals that have an EM program chances are you won't rotate at a hospital that has an EM program and thus won't get an SLOR. It's almost impossible to set up an elective at a hospital that's not affiliated with your school, I have tried and been turned down many times, so have many of my classmates. Luckily SGU has so many affiliated hospitals that if done early a student can set up multiple electives in their desired field without any problems. If a student from another school tried to set up an elective at one our hospitals they would be simply told that they can't do it.

So there you go the secrete to matching at any residency not just EM is to do well (above average for your specialty on the boards and GPA) and do a few electives in hospitals that actually have residency programs in the field you're interested in. Then work hard, know most of the answers to the pimping q's, and get LORs, the apply early and widely, you'll match. that's it no big secretes you just have to work hard and do things early. Lots of people can't maintain the intensity needed to be on top of your game for so long and that's why they struggle or don't match. or their school simply doesn't provide them with the opportunities, if your school doesn't have an affiliated hospital that has an EM residency program, your chance of matching into an EM program have dropped by at least 40% I would say, for the reason listed above.

That's why I picked SGU because it has the most and best affiliated hospitals out of any carib school. that and we advertise in "the economist".
 
I figured as much.

SGU gets people into EM
Ross gets people into Radiology

That seems to be the net effect of the Faculty connections and hospital affiliations.

"plenty of ERs have residents rotate through their ER's but don't have EM residencies, that doesn't do a student who wants to go into EM any good"

And thats what a lot of the non-SGU schools have available.
 
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I figured as much.

SGU gets people into EM
Ross gets people into Radiology


That seems to be the net effect of the Faculty connections and hospital affiliations.

"plenty of ERs have residents rotate through their ER's but don't have EM residencies, that doesn't do a student who wants to go into EM any good"

And thats what a lot of the non-SGU schools have available.

I don't know if I would agree with a generalization like that.. SGU gets people into Rads too, i am pretty sure we had almost the same amount of people match into Rads this year as Ross.
 
I don't know if I would agree with a generalization like that.. SGU gets people into Rads too, i am pretty sure we had almost the same amount of people match into Rads this year as Ross.

I dont mean between schools.... i mean within schools - more students go into one or the other in each.

Just eyeballing the EM data for this year, there were about 34 EM bound SGU grads, and about 23 from Ross.

In previous years, when the charts and graphs were less confusing, you could see that SGUs EM list was longer than its Rads list.... and vice versa.

Anyway....
 
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