Low tier med school --> academic medicine

[alt91119]

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If I attend a "low-tier" medical school (think commonwealth medical college, new york medical college, etc), how much does that preclude me from the possibility of a career in academic medicine at a major academic medical center (Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh, etc) in a relatively competitive specialty (cardiology, etc)?

I'm guessing the answer will be "not at all", but I'd like to see what you guys think.

 

[Mad Jack]

Your residency will be far more important than your medical school pedigree when it comes to practicing in such places.

 

[AlteredScale]

If I attend a "low-tier" medical school (think commonwealth medical college, new york medical college, etc), how much does that preclude me from the possibility of a career in academic medicine at a major academic medical center (Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh, etc) in a relatively competitive specialty (cardiology, etc)?

I'm guessing the answer will be "not at all", but I'd like to see what you guys think.

School tier doesn't matter much, i think performance has a bigger factoe:

If you perform poorly in both board scores and clerkships then you will have a low chance of matching in an academic medical center and/or a competitive specialty.

Perform well on boards, rock your clerkships, do some research and you will go into the places you're eyeing with ease.

 

[alt91119]

Your residency will be far more important than your medical school pedigree when it comes to practicing in such places.

Then the obvious question: would graduates of these types of schools be reasonably able to match into a top 5 residency program? Ie, could you match into a top 5 pediatrics residency without having board scores 20% higher than the equivalent applicant from a mid to top tier medical school?

 

[alt91119]

School tier doesn't matter much, it's all about performance:

If you perform poorly in both board scores and clerkships then you will have a low chance of matching in an academic medical center and/or a competitive specialty.

Perform well on boards, rock your clerkships, do some research and you will go into the places you're eyeing with ease.

When choosing among low-tier schools, would it then be important to look for those with better research funding? For example, commonwealth has less than 1 million per year in research funding...

 

[cs24]

Then the obvious question: would graduates of these types of schools be reasonably able to match into a top 5 residency program? Ie, could you match into a top 5 pediatrics residency without having board scores 20% higher than the equivalent applicant from a mid to top tier medical school?

With the corollary being, doing you need to go to a top five residency program to match into a cardiology fellowship? I think you may be setting the bar a little high here..

 

[mimelim]

Your residency will be far more important than your medical school pedigree when it comes to practicing in such places.

Just to add a little more detail to Mad Jack's post. I am going to assume that you are thinking peds based on your OP.


Your residency is going to largely determine what doors are open or are difficult to open. Going to one of the top peds programs is pretty damn important if you are aiming to stay at one of the big name programs after graduation. Residency applications are complex. Now, this will seemingly contradict many of my prior posts on this site, but... Where you go to school matters... a little. For surgical sub-specialties it matters next to none, but at the super high end programs in IM and peds, there is a certain level of bias toward the big name schools. My theory is that this is because they simply have so many 260+ Step 1 applicants (their pools are huge) that they run out of ways to differentiate applicants. I have an MS4 friend applying this cycle into peds out of one of the UTs, I have seen a fair amount of bias against him at the top top peds programs despite on paper him blowing me out of the water scores wise.

 

[AlteredScale]

When choosing among low-tier schools, would it then be important to look for those with better research funding? For example, commonwealth has less than 1 million per year in research funding...

I would look to see if there are research opportunities in the fellowships your eyeing and also see the strength of their clinical division within that program. If VCUSOM has less research funding but has a strong basic science division in cards then go there if that's the eventual thing you want to do IMO.

 

[mimelim]

Then the obvious question: would graduates of these types of schools be reasonably able to match into a top 5 residency program? Ie, could you match into a top 5 pediatrics residency without having board scores 20% higher than the equivalent applicant from a mid to top tier medical school?

If you are talking Boston Children's, Texas Children's, CHOP, STL Children's, etc. You are looking at average board scores well over 250. You are talking about programs getting to hand pick who they want. You have to have a very strong application. Can you get in from just about any US-MD school? Absolutely. Will it be harder? Yes.

When choosing among low-tier schools, would it then be important to look for those with better research funding? For example, commonwealth has less than 1 million per year in research funding...

Meaningless. Where the funding goes and what people are doing with medical students is what matters.

 

[alt91119]

Just to add a little more detail to Mad Jack's post. I am going to assume that you are thinking peds based on your OP.


Your residency is going to largely determine what doors are open or are difficult to open. Going to one of the top peds programs is pretty damn important if you are aiming to stay at one of the big name programs after graduation. Residency applications are complex. Now, this will seemingly contradict many of my prior posts on this site, but... Where you go to school matters... a little. For surgical sub-specialties it matters next to none, but at the super high end programs in IM and peds, there is a certain level of bias toward the big name schools. My theory is that this is because they simply have so many 260+ Step 1 applicants (their pools are huge) that they run out of ways to differentiate applicants. I have an MS4 friend applying this cycle into peds out of one of the UTs, I have seen a fair amount of bias against him at the top top peds programs despite on paper him blowing me out of the water scores wise.

Realistically, there is very little chance of me getting accepted to a top 20 medical school. Based on your assessment, does this mean that unless you attend a top ~20 medical school (which gives you a boost a top peds residencies), then any mid to low tier is viewed nearly identically?

 

[mimelim]

Realistically, there is very little chance of me getting accepted to a top 20 medical school. Based on your assessment, does this mean that unless you attend a top ~20 medical school (which gives you a boost a top peds residencies), then any mid to low tier is viewed nearly identically?

To paint with a very broad paintbrush, yes. I would have said top 5 will be a small boost, everything else is just too small to really quantify in terms of relative importance. But, let me stress, you can get into a top Peds program from just about any US-MD program. You truly can. Look at the match lists of your 'lower tier' US-MD schools, you will see Boston Children's, CHOP or STL Children's every once in a while. But, my anecdotal experience (n= 5-6) would suggest that it will be harder.

 

[Mad Jack]

Is it going to be less likely? Yes. Is it impossible? No.

http://www.chop.edu/doctors/falkensammer-christine#.VHu3cb5H10t
http://www.chop.edu/doctors/lee-hae-rhi#.VHu3kL5H10s
http://www.chop.edu/doctors/vogel-r-lee#.VHu3rL5H10s
http://www.chop.edu/doctors/farrell-paul#.VHu3w75H10s
http://www.chop.edu/doctors/nadaraj-sumekala#.VHu33r5H10s
http://www.chop.edu/doctors/mohan-shaun#.VHu3_r5H10s
http://www.chop.edu/doctors/dilorenzo-michael#.VHu4Ib5H10s

These are people I grabbed from the first 12 names listed in their staff directory. I'm sure you can find plenty more. Three of them are IMGs, the rest went to either mid-tier medical schools, mid-tier residencies, or both. The best way to get into a place like CHOP is to produce good research- if you can't do that, it doesn't matter where you went to school. If you can do that and you've got the board scores and residency letters to prove you've got the right stuff, they'll take you on.

The best way to figure out how "elitist" an institution is so far as the credentials they desire is always to look at their faculty and staff pages. These aren't made up conjecture, they aren't anecdotes, they're who is actually working there right now, and hard proof of what they're looking for.

http://www.chop.edu/doctors?search=...ld_ref_locations_field_geo_latlon_latlon_op=-

 

[IlDestriero]

The last thing you did is what will have the biggest effect. (In addition to research, which I assume is a given for most academic jobs at leading hospitals.) When you're applying for medical school they look at college, residency at medical school, fellowship at residency, etc.
If you go to an unknown medical school, bust your ass to get as good a residency as possible. While there engage in meaningful research and be better than your peers, be a chief, etc. That will get you noticed for the LORs you need for a competitive fellowship at a major program. Continue to work hard and use your research time to set the foundation for a career in academic medicine and you can get faculty jobs at Boston, CHOP, etc.
The most useful thing that the big name programs and schools will offer you is more access to research, mentorship, etc. That's what's important to a career in academia.

 

[alt91119]

The last thing you did is what will have the biggest effect. (In addition to research, which I assume is a given for most academic jobs at leading hospitals.) When you're applying for medical school they look at college, residency at medical school, fellowship at residency, etc.
If you go to an unknown medical school, bust your ass to get as good a residency as possible. While there engage in meaningful research and be better than your peers, be a chief, etc. That will get you noticed for the LORs you need for a competitive fellowship at a major program. Continue to work hard and use your research time to set the foundation for a career in academic medicine and you can get faculty jobs at Boston, CHOP, etc.
The most useful thing that the big name programs and schools will offer you is more access to research, mentorship, etc. That's what's important to a career in academia.

Does research done in undergrad have any utility in residency applications? I will have presented at two national conferences and have a first-author publication in research directly related to the type of specialized medicine that I (at this point) think I want to eventually practice.

 

[IlDestriero]

It will be on your CV. It's better than nothing, but if your applying to a research focused program and are saying how you want a career in academic medicine, you should probably have something to point to from 4 years of medical school.

 

[karayaa]

What about if I want a purely clinical position at a children's hospital, or a clinical education position (teaching residents/fellows)? Is research still as important?

 

[IlDestriero]

That's what I do. I don't have any research requirements. Though I did some research, case reports, book chapters, etc.
What matters most for that track is teaching potential and clinical excellence. Research helps as you are part of the department, will have to help with others clinical or teaching research, etc. Your opinion is also valuable with regards to research projects, etc.

 

[malick1]

Publish something Important, and create a good network , and then it won't matter if you went to Meharry or Harvard, you be fine for an academic career.