How much helpful is doing an EM rotation in getting one into I.M. Residency?

[medpride]

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Guys,

After several months of struggle I finally managed to get an Emergency Medicine clerkship in U.S.A for 1 month. As you all know how hard it is for an International medical student to get a clerkship in U.S.A. So, my question is would this experience in Emergency Medicine help me in getting into an internal medicine residency? I mean how much value do the P.Ds give to an EM rotation?

Please suggest me. I cannot decide whether or not to go for this rotation.

 

[medpride]

Guys how helpful is doing a clerkship rotation in Malignant Hematology to get one into Internal Medicine residency? How much value P.Ds give to this experience and the lors we get from Hematology physicians. I ve been accepted for a rotation in Malignant Hematology at Weill cornell. But I am in a dilemma whether or not to go for it cause its costing me a lot. Please suggest me what to do.

 

[tkim]

Guys,

After several months of struggle I finally managed to get an Emergency Medicine clerkship in U.S.A for 1 month. As you all know how hard it is for an International medical student to get a clerkship in U.S.A. So, my question is would this experience in Emergency Medicine help me in getting into an internal medicine residency? I mean how much value do the P.Ds give to an EM rotation?

Please help me guys. I cannot decide whether or not to go for this rotation as I have to travel all the way from India to do this rotation.

I think if you wanted to do IM, you should have arranged for an IM rotation? Any US rotation experience is helpful, but I have a feeling an IM rotation would have been better.

 

[dotcb]

I agree with the poster above. IM would be more helpful. IM is not one of the most competitive specialties. If you are an excellent candidate in terms of numbers and written evaluations, you may not need to fly from India to do a clerkship in the US. However, if there are any significant weaknesses in your application materials, doing a rotation in the US and getting glowing evals would be helpful. There is a certain hesitation in accepting non-US graduates because the style, practice, and culture of medicine differs between countries. I'm not saying it's right, but it's a reality. And failing to match is a problem for most applicants.

 

[medpride]

Thank you guys.
I tried really hard to get an IM rotation and as they are very competitive among the international students itself, I cannot manage to get a rotation in that.

I got an elective at Cornell in the dept of Malignant Hematology. But I am thinking of dropping it as it is costing me so much and also for the reason it wont help me much to get me into IM residency. Suggest me is it the right thing to do?

 

[smq123]

Moving to the Internal Medicine forum.

 

[medpride]

My apologies and thanks to you smq123

 

[sineapse]

Thank you guys.
I tried really hard to get an IM rotation and as they are very competitive among the international students itself, I cannot manage to get a rotation in that.

I got an elective at Cornell in the dept of Malignant Hematology. But I am thinking of dropping it as it is costing me so much and also for the reason it wont help me much to get me into IM residency. Suggest me is it the right thing to do?

From another IMG:

You do realise heme-onc is a subspecialty of IM yeah? Do you have any other USCE? If not, you would be frankly dumb to not go. Whatever the cost is now will be a small drop in the ocean in the future. A hands on clinical rotation, in a sub specialty of medicine? With the possibility of getting a US LoR? From Cornell? Come on...

As an aside, it is not that difficult to do a rotation in the US. There are lots of universities who will take foreign medical students for rotations. Either go through the Wikipedia list of US medical schools one by one (the long version) or go through your medical school and see if they have some exchanges with US medical schools (the short version).

 

[medpride]

Thank you Sineapse. I will definitely utilize this opportunity. Yes, I've already tried almost all the universities and community hospitals too to get clinical rotations, but only managed to get 2 rotations one in a community hospital and another in cornell. Most of the universities are asking for step 1 score which I don't have.

Sineapse, Would you also suggest me whether doing an Emergency Medicine rotation in a community hospital in anyway help me in getting into IM residency. Do rotations in a community hospital valued by P.Ds?

 

[sineapse]

Thank you Sineapse. I will definitely utilize this opportunity. Yes, I've already tried almost all the universities and community hospitals too to get clinical rotations, but only managed to get 2 rotations one in a community hospital and another in cornell. Most of the universities are asking for step 1 score which I don't have.

Sineapse, Would you also suggest me whether doing an Emergency Medicine rotation in a community hospital in anyway help me in getting into IM residency. Do rotations in a community hospital valued by P.Ds?

Really? When I was looking, I thought the minority of places were asking for a score. You tried calling them up and speaking in person? I found people to be very friendly.

I suggest that any US experience is better than no experience. I have three US letters, all from university affiliated community programs, organised through two very good medical schools. That was the best I could do. I also have two letters from British consultants, but I will be sending off my US letters. I'm no expert, but I think EM would be a decent alternative to IM...it's still a medicine field after all (not like you are planning on doing an ortho elective for an IM career...but still, any experience is better than none)

If you look at this whole thing from a US PD perspective, I would have thought that they want known quantities. A letter from a US teaching attending, who deals with med students often and therefore is in a position to judge and compare you, is probably thought of as more useful than a foreign letter writer whos standards and expectations may be different.

 

[gutonc]

Thank you guys.
I tried really hard to get an IM rotation and as they are very competitive among the international students itself, I cannot manage to get a rotation in that.

I got an elective at Cornell in the dept of Malignant Hematology. But I am thinking of dropping it as it is costing me so much and also for the reason it wont help me much to get me into IM residency. Suggest me is it the right thing to do?

Do not drop that elective. That's a medicine sub-specialty elective (which is all you're going to get at a place that doesn't suck...many/most places don't allow aways on their core IM rotations).

An EM elective is better than nothing. Keep in mind that you're going to be judged against US IMGs (the Carib kids) who will have spent 2 full years doing rotations in the US. 2 months is better than nothing but it's still pretty weak compared to 2 years. If you can score another month doing anything (peds, endocrinology, SICU, whatever) you'd be well advised to take it.

 

[medpride]

Thank you guys. I will go for it then and try for some more clinical exposure when I go there.