in need of reassurance

[pathstudent]

hi,

i am a 3rd year med student and will apply to path residencies this fall. I really want to go to a big name academic center (ideally Columbia, Univ of Chi, or UCSF), but I have heard that a lack of an MD PhD severely limits your "desirability" in those type of programs.

I didn't do the md/phd, but have a few months of "hard science" research, a 250 step 1 score, AOA, top 2% in GPA in the class and have done well (i think) in the clinical rotations. I go to a less than prominent US med school but am fairly confident that I can get enough good letters of rec.

Assuming that I can interview adequately, are the big name programs in big metropolitan areas accessable to a student like me, or do you need to have gone through a big name medical school or need the history of an MD/Phd?

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[bigler]

I wouldn't worry about the md-phd at all. I think someone gave you've heard some slightly skewed info. Its true that some "big name" programs are research/academic oriented, and thus might like md-phd's;however, after just going through this experience even these programs desire a mix in their residents. You can go to the program's web sites and usually check out the ratio of md-phd to md's. I'm going to be an md and have very similiar stats to yours w/probably less research and had had a great experience with most programs showing lots of interest (even the one's w/ huge academic reps like Brigham and Women's and others). In short, every program is different and may be looking for different things, but I think with your stats you'll be an extremely competitive and desirable candidate anywhere you look, and even with the increase in interest in path, your biggest problem will be deciding where you want to go.

Hope this helped...

Cheers.