Increasing chances as an IMG

[LimeNilepeark]

Hello,

long-time lurker here. I'm a recent medical graduate, planning to apply for the match in 2022. I'm looking for some advice on how to maximize my chances of matching at a top residency program, maybe even in a research track. My hope is to become an academic psychiatrist, doing research.

A short overview of my stats

Step 1: 255
Step 2 CK: 262
School: IMG (Western Europe)
Class Rank: No class rank, but scored >90th percentile on all national exams
Grades in Clerkship: Could get them from my medical school, got A's on everything except family medicine
Research/ Publications/ Extracurriculars: 2 preprints with first author, 6 publications as coauthor, all in psych. I have a master's degree and will also get a PhD equivalent in December 2022, both in psych.
Red Flags: (step failures, etc): None

I'll do an internship at a major academic institution in the US in spring 2022, hopefully being able to publish a paper there. Afterwards, I'll also do a 4-week observership at a top US institution in psych. Lastly, I plan to take step 3 before, to have it in time for the match as well. My LORs will come from my home institution, one from the internship and hopefully one from the observership. One major problem is that I couldn't do any electives due to COVID, so I'll have to do an observership.

What do you think could I do to increase my chances of matching ? Should I do another observership in internal? Get a language certificate for my spanish skills? Or focus on research and try to increase the publication count by a little? Not sure where I should focus my energy. Or does anyone maybe have an idea I haven't thought of yet? Any feedback is greatly appreciated

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[Psychresy]

Hello,

long-time lurker here. I'm a recent medical graduate, planning to apply for the match in 2022. I'm looking for some advice on how to maximize my chances of matching at a top residency program, maybe even in a research track. My hope is to become an academic psychiatrist, doing research.

A short overview of my stats

Step 1: 255
Step 2 CK: 264
School: IMG (Western Europe)
Class Rank: No class rank, but scored >90th percentile on all national exams
Grades in Clerkship: Could get them from my medical school, got A's on everything except family medicine
Research/ Publications/ Extracurriculars: 2 preprints with first author, 6 publications as coauthor, all in psych. I have a master's degree and will also get a PhD equivalent in December 2022, both in psych.
Red Flags: (step failures, etc): None

I'll do an internship at a major academic institution in the US in spring 2022, hopefully being able to publish a paper there. Afterwards, I'll also do a 4-week observership at a top US institution in psych. Lastly, I plan to take step 3 before, to have it in time for the match as well. My LORs will come from my home institution, one from the internship and hopefully one from the observership. One major problem is that I couldn't do any electives due to COVID, so I'll have to do an observership.

What do you think could I do to increase my chances of matching ? Should I do another observership in internal? Get a language certificate for my spanish skills? Or focus on research and try to increase the publication count by a little? Not sure where I should focus my energy. Or does anyone maybe have an idea I haven't thought of yet? Any feedback is greatly appreciated

Letters of interest to as many programs as you can handle writing. You've got a good application. You'll get in somewhere.

 

[wolfvgang22]

I am a U.S. IMG now several years into practice in the U.S. and board certified. I think your application is very strong. Your USMLE stats and grades are similar to mine. You are more research oriented, and I'm an American that did all U.S. clinicals.

I completely agree with Psychresy. Do what I did and apply very broadly, apply to any program you would be willing to train at. If you are confident and friendly you will likely match.

It is worth the money to do many interviews. Even if you don't match at a certain place, psychiatry is a small world and you run into people you meet again later and it helps broaden your network.

It may not be a disaster if you don't match at a research powerhouse. Sometimes a mid-tier residency program is more hungry for residents interested in research and supportive of residents pursuing their own research. My mid tier residency program had the hospital statistician at our disposal and dying to help. My friends published fairly easily there. On the other hand, my top tier fellowship program staffed by subject experts were less interested. They were preoccupied with their own grants and rather than support fellows research they instead preferred students who would do scut work and reserve authorship for themselves and their existing collaborators. It was interesting.

 

[Merovinge]

You just want to make sure you have a cogent narrative about why you are applying to US residencies. It'll be pretty clear you are academically capable based on your CV, I would want to make sure you show your passion for research and why you want to do that in the US versus Western Europe.

Separately, what is a PhD equivalent? I thought PhD's were the standard across the globe, compared to the MD/DO/Mbbs/yadda yadda for medical doctor degrees.

 

[splik]

You could be a very competitive applicant. Your best bet though is to do a post-doc at a major academic institution in the US to get some publications and a letter from a PI who will support you to match at that institution. You would also be able to get more clinical experience that way (I allow IMGs to get hands on experience with me, but typically only if they are already doing a postdoc or working at my institution and thus they are able to get better letters than you could from just doing an observership).

ETA: my institution (which is one of the top programs) has had a few IMGs in recent years all of whom have done postdocs as said institution. This is true of most IMGs at the top psych programs. As psych gets more competitive, there is still a place for outstanding research oriented IMGs to match at the top programs but you have to get your foot in the door and be considered a known entity.

 

[LimeNilepeark]

Thanks a lot for the helpful feedback so far - I really appreciate it. I had planned to apply rather broadly, so far I have around 50 programs that I will apply to. I guess I will be writing quite a few letters of interest.

Separately, what is a PhD equivalent? I thought PhD's were the standard across the globe, compared to the MD/DO/Mbbs/yadda yadda for medical doctor degrees.

The PhD process is somewhat standardized but still very different between countries. For example in the UK you have quite a few PhD programs that take around 3 years, while in the US they often take 5-6 years. In my country, you can get a doctoral degree in quite a short time, so some people have very few publications after their PhD. But I put some effort in and got some publications, making it equivalent to PhD programs in other countries.

You could be a very competitive applicant. Your best bet though is to do a post-doc at a major academic institution in the US to get some publications and a letter from a PI who will support you to match at that institution. You would also be able to get more clinical experience that way (I allow IMGs to get hands on experience with me, but typically only if they are already doing a postdoc or working at my institution and thus they are able to get better letters than you could from just doing an observership).

@splik Thanks for the insight - I saw that quite a few of the IMGs at the top institutions were there before as postdocs. I was hoping that the research internship would already be a good first step (it'll be for 3 months and I'll keep working with them remotely). I guess I might ask about hands-on options while I'm there. Just out of curiosity: How many publications would you consider as competitive, assuming they are in reputable journals?