- Joined
- Aug 5, 2019
- Messages
- 14
- Reaction score
- 8
Hi everyone,
So I had a meeting with my residency advisor today where they painted a pretty grim picture of my chances of matching at all, in their words. I had no idea until now I was this deep in trouble. Was wondering if anyone here had any thoughts on my stats and whether or not I have any chances of matching.
My desired specialty: IM, want to go into Geriatrics. Most interested in primary care programs as I want to do outpatient.
US MD at school ranked top 10 for Primary Care, top 30 for research.
1st-2nd year courses: Pass/Fail grading. Passed throughout.
Step 1: Pass, first try, but took extended study (which doesn't openly show up on our transcript, just that I studied "basic medicine concepts" for that extra semester...I expect that PDs can read between the lines though)
3rd year: Got a Pass on my Medicine and Family Medicine rotations. My first rotation was Medicine and though I got very strong positive clinical feedback, I failed my IM shelf on the first try and this dragged down my grade to a Pass. Largely because of this I struggled with confidence afterwards. I received a High Pass on my subsequent Surgery rotation and postponed my shelf (and passed it later...the postponement does not show up on my transcript), and due to my ongoing issues with testing, I was very nervous and unsure of my clinical knowledge/abilities as a student during my Family Medicine rotation, which contributed to getting a Pass along with a borderline passing shelf score. After this, I finally started understanding how to study better and balance that with my clinical duties. I got High Passes from that point forward in Peds and Ob/GYN (and Honors in Psych, although I don't think that gets me many brownie points). The big problem here is that my advisor says my Pass grades in Medicine and Fam Med make it look like I have poor clinical skills. I didn't think about this but since PDs can't see the breakdown of how much my shelf scores contributed to a given rotation score, it would make sense that they might see a Pass and think that I have poor clinical skills. I am not sure how I can mitigate this in my application.
4th year so far: I took a leave of absence to get an MPH and came back to med school with only enough time to get a Sub-I and my MICU rotation under my belt before this coming September. I got a High Pass on my Sub-I (I was studying for Step 2 throughout it, and I hadn't been in clinicals for a year) and so far I am really hoping and praying I have performed well enough in my current MICU rotation for Honors. My advisor tells me that a HP on a Sub-I is a red flag because it raises the question of whether I can function as an intern. I was previously thinking that I got 2 strong LORs from my Sub-I, but after her feedback, I'm a little concerned they won't be as strong as I thought they would be, so I am looking to get an additional LOR from one of my attendings in my MICU rotation, who told me that they would be impressed by me if I were an intern.
Step 2: 243
Extracurriculars/Activities: Nothing spectacular, some community volunteering (adult/older community populations) and intermediate approaching advanced-level medical Spanish experience throughout med school. Also hoping that my MPH and the internship I completed during it will carry some weight. I didn't pursue formal research as it did not align with my career goals.
Bottom quartile/third on class rank in MSPE, thanks to my shelf failure (I so so so regret that lol).
I apologize for having written so much. Not sure what to do moving forward. I have some meetings set up to talk to various advisors at my school but in the meantime I'm really freaking out. If anyone has any thoughts or even any advice I would appreciate it so much.
So I had a meeting with my residency advisor today where they painted a pretty grim picture of my chances of matching at all, in their words. I had no idea until now I was this deep in trouble. Was wondering if anyone here had any thoughts on my stats and whether or not I have any chances of matching.
My desired specialty: IM, want to go into Geriatrics. Most interested in primary care programs as I want to do outpatient.
US MD at school ranked top 10 for Primary Care, top 30 for research.
1st-2nd year courses: Pass/Fail grading. Passed throughout.
Step 1: Pass, first try, but took extended study (which doesn't openly show up on our transcript, just that I studied "basic medicine concepts" for that extra semester...I expect that PDs can read between the lines though)
3rd year: Got a Pass on my Medicine and Family Medicine rotations. My first rotation was Medicine and though I got very strong positive clinical feedback, I failed my IM shelf on the first try and this dragged down my grade to a Pass. Largely because of this I struggled with confidence afterwards. I received a High Pass on my subsequent Surgery rotation and postponed my shelf (and passed it later...the postponement does not show up on my transcript), and due to my ongoing issues with testing, I was very nervous and unsure of my clinical knowledge/abilities as a student during my Family Medicine rotation, which contributed to getting a Pass along with a borderline passing shelf score. After this, I finally started understanding how to study better and balance that with my clinical duties. I got High Passes from that point forward in Peds and Ob/GYN (and Honors in Psych, although I don't think that gets me many brownie points). The big problem here is that my advisor says my Pass grades in Medicine and Fam Med make it look like I have poor clinical skills. I didn't think about this but since PDs can't see the breakdown of how much my shelf scores contributed to a given rotation score, it would make sense that they might see a Pass and think that I have poor clinical skills. I am not sure how I can mitigate this in my application.
4th year so far: I took a leave of absence to get an MPH and came back to med school with only enough time to get a Sub-I and my MICU rotation under my belt before this coming September. I got a High Pass on my Sub-I (I was studying for Step 2 throughout it, and I hadn't been in clinicals for a year) and so far I am really hoping and praying I have performed well enough in my current MICU rotation for Honors. My advisor tells me that a HP on a Sub-I is a red flag because it raises the question of whether I can function as an intern. I was previously thinking that I got 2 strong LORs from my Sub-I, but after her feedback, I'm a little concerned they won't be as strong as I thought they would be, so I am looking to get an additional LOR from one of my attendings in my MICU rotation, who told me that they would be impressed by me if I were an intern.
Step 2: 243
Extracurriculars/Activities: Nothing spectacular, some community volunteering (adult/older community populations) and intermediate approaching advanced-level medical Spanish experience throughout med school. Also hoping that my MPH and the internship I completed during it will carry some weight. I didn't pursue formal research as it did not align with my career goals.
Bottom quartile/third on class rank in MSPE, thanks to my shelf failure (I so so so regret that lol).
I apologize for having written so much. Not sure what to do moving forward. I have some meetings set up to talk to various advisors at my school but in the meantime I'm really freaking out. If anyone has any thoughts or even any advice I would appreciate it so much.
