Interviews at California programs

[garden666]

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Cali. rogram residents:

Could anyone tell me when Cali path programs (i.e. UCLA, UCSD, UCSF, Stanford, etc.) send out interview offers? What are the latest days for you to get interview offers? I submitted my application this Tuesday (09/08/03) and I started to feel nervous.

 

[mrpeters714]

I wouldn't get nervous until the end of october or so. Although I am a cali resident, I actually have no idea when my program sends out invites. Don't stress--it's still very early. Paperwork needs to be gathered, committees need to meet, etc, etc.

-mrp

 

[garden666]

mrp,

Thanks for the reply! I am a chronic worrier and sometimes do stress out irrationally -- I know that it takes time for the programs to go through the documents and make decisions.

If you do not mind, could you tell me when you submitted your ERAS application and when you got invitations from the California programs last year.

 

[mrpeters714]

can't remember exactly when I posted my eras application--it was within a day or two after ERAS opened, i think.

invites:
Stanford 9/19
UCSD 9/23
UCLA 10/4
UCSF 10/10

-mrp

 

[garden666]

mrp, thanks for the interview info!

 

[pathstudent]

As far as UCSF goes, unless you have a PHD/MD it might be a huge waste of time/money to go there for an interview. For them class rank/AOA/
250+step1/interest in path are all secondary and almost completely irrelevant. In fact I know that they took a MD/PhD that had never even took a path rotation and rejected one of their PSFs who had done "better than most any resident" according to an attending last year. And they took one guy who had a PhD in some pure liberal arts subject like "art history" or "latin american culture" just becuase it was a PhD. kinda weird if you asked me.

What is ironic to me, is that the MD/PhDs at my school were far from the top of the class in the first and second years when they were doing just what we were doing (studying basic science with no research going on at the time) and then the batch of MD/PhDs that did the third year with us were very poor also in clinical skills. All the "junior AOA" (based completely on academic performance) in my class were pure MDs.

So I guess UCSF is just hoping for people that will go and be lab rats one day. It is important to have lab rats, but why not just take pure PhDs for that?

 

[mrpeters714]

I wasn't that impressed with UCSF's residency. I think Stanford's was more competitive last year, IMHO. I ended up ranking UCSF lower than the residency where I ended up (UCSD).

I'm not really sure that they only take MD/PhD's, but the relatively new UCSF chair, Abul Abbas, is a scientist rather than a clinical (ie practicing) pathologist, and indicated to me that he encourages his residents (particularly the MD/PhDs) to do basic science as much as possible. He told me he was disapointed to hear that I wasn't dedicated to a career in the basic sciences. My response is--why bother doing a residency when I could go straight to a Post-doc? I'm doing a residency primarily to become a good practicing pathologist. Research is just icing on the cake. (I'm an MD/PhD, BTW).

It probably wouldn't affect the residents, but there are rumors that the faculty is unhappy with Abbas and what he is trying to do with the program. I know my program has benefited directly by getting two top notch faculty that defected from UCSF to UCSD shortly after Abbas took over. However, there are alot of faculty that are fine with Abbas, and strife amongst the faculty is unlikely to affect the residents anyway.

To be fair, there are some great things about UCSF--it's a great, world renowned hospital with fantastic specimen volume and variety. Abbas has set up budgets that residents can access freely for research purposes (with little to no oversight). I really liked the residency PD (tresseler), and got the impression that he is popular with the residents. The city itself is a mixed bag--lots of stuff to do and see and very beautiful, but very, very expensive. The salary at UCSF is a little higher than other residencies, but the cost of living is much higher.

anyway, good luck with match. remember that all of the above is just my opinion, so take it with a grain of salt.

-mrp

 

[globulin]

The only ones I've heard from so far are UC-SD and Stanford. Anyone else hear from any others in california?

 

[pbp4]

Originally posted by pathstudent
What is ironic to me, is that the MD/PhDs at my school were far from the top of the class in the first and second years when they were doing just what we were doing (studying basic science with no research going on at the time) and then the batch of MD/PhDs that did the third year with us were very poor also in clinical skills. All the "junior AOA" (based completely on academic performance) in my class were pure MDs.

this is not true everywhere. in my class 2 of 5 MD/PhDs are junior AOA and if MD/PhDs do not make junior AOA they cannot make AOA. at least 2 of the other 3 were close and if they went straight through they would have made regular AOA without a doubt. in addition, MD/PhDs are also in the top of there clinical class. but this is a non-MSTP school so perhaps there is some over-compensation (maybe even explaining this post)🙂