Master degree and Residency

[deleted212936]

Does a Master degree help your residency application, especially programs of specialties?

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[OveractiveBrain]

These are gross oversimplifications but...

In anything but MPH it doesn't matter

In MPH, community hospitals like it a lot.

"Primary Care" fields (gen surg, peds, family, IM) may consider it.

In general, your Boards, Grades/AOA, Research, Letters of Rec, Sub-I auditions, and Personal Statement matter more.

An MPH can compensate for a lack of research because you "did something else" and they "have something to talk to you about." But, if your goal is to do interventional cardiology, its tough to say "i really care about public health! but what i really want is alot of cards inpatient procedural work."

100% Anectodal from people I know say that retrospectively the people not doing a primary care track regret doing their MPH (Uro, Ortho, Optho) because it never came up. People doing Med-Peds and Tropical Medicine (i.e. med programs that let them travel) really thought it was awesome and it helped them in their interviews.

Doing a masters before you show up to med school was just to get in. Everyone knows that.

4 years 5 letters NOT WORTH IT (MD/MPH)

 

[caseofthemndays]

I have a masters degree for which I wrote a thesis and presented a poster based on original research. I would like to believe that graduate level research helped, but I'm still a first year so I don't know....

 

[Smurfette]

I don't think any general surgery programs really give a crap about an MPH either...

FM, IM (and subspecialties), Med-Peds yes. Peds, OB/Gyn maybe depending on program. Just about everything else, no. Exceptions being uncommon fields such as tropical medicine and for people who do a fair amount of international work and the like.

 

[rbnsafsadgf]

there is an association b/t having a masters and NOT matching: http://www.aamc.org/programs/cim/chartingoutcomes.pdf

However, the real factor might be that poorer students are more likely to first get a masters.

That said, I have a MPH.

 

[DrJosephKim]

If you're pursuing primary care, then an MPH can be very beneficial. If you have a master's degree in another field, you want to make sure that you clearly indicate how you think you can use that during residency (eg - improving workflow efficiencies in the emergency room by examining processes and applying Six Sigma methodologies). I know of several cases where MD/MBA students worked on these types of specific projects during residency.

 

[deleted212936]

there is an association b/t having a masters and NOT matching: http://www.aamc.org/programs/cim/chartingoutcomes.pdf

However, the real factor might be that poorer students are more likely to first get a masters.

That said, I have a MPH.

Hmm... interesting! I think students that DON'T match did poorly in med school. Otherwise, undergrad GPA wouldn't be a barrier, would it?

 

[deuist]

MS is engineering here. No help at all when I applied to residency. A few weeks ago my program director was shocked to discover that I have a master's degree. I guess it didn't stand out on my resume.

 

[Kevin Baker]

I don't think it helps much, if at all, if you got it before med school.

Though I have had a few family friends tell me that an MPH or MBA does help in some cases, but that it is really easy to get after med school and your employer will pay for it.

Anecdotally, all of my friends who got or are getting an MS before med school either gave up the med school dream or are getting it because their stats aren't competitive enough, so that association hobbes brought up makes sense to me.

 

[ahyes]

How can an extra degree not help? Its just something else interesting to talk about, regardless of if you got it before your MD/DO.

 

[lbottichio]

I'm currently working on completing my MPH in epidemiology and have been made to understand at our university that even outside of the "weird" specialties that the MPH is valuable, as long as the research is available.

I'd hate to apply to medical school and find out opposite, as I've worked incredibly hard on two LARGE research projects, one in sports medicine/injury prevention and the other in infectious disease. I have an article that I'm hoping gets published SOON and my name on a grant that will bring money in to the university.

I can't see how that wouldn't be valuable to a university that appreciates the research perspective. I also can't see how that wouldn't make me a better candidate than an undergrad coming in without my extra work. Correct me if I'm completely misguided.

 

[gocoastal]

I had an MPH prior to medical school and I am now going into General Surgery.

Along the interview trail, I was asked about it all the time. Apparently an MPH is unique among surgeons. If nobody brought it up, I did.
You will get asked a lot, "of all the applicants we are interviewing, why should we pick you?" or "how are you a unique applicant?" or some variation on the subject.

It was an easy answer for me to simply discuss how my MPH gives me a unique perspectives on patients that most surgeons don't have. And yes, I know there are few MPHers because I even had people tell me that I was the only person they had ever seen with an MPH.

That being said, don't get a masters degree to give yourself a leg up in residency. Do it because you think it'll be valuable in your life elsewhere.

 

[gocoastal]

Also, since someone mentioned it, I didn't do any research in public health. I worked in the public health field before medical school.
I still think it was good for my application.

 

[rbnsafsadgf]

That being said, don't get a masters degree to give yourself a leg up in residency. Do it because you think it'll be valuable in your life elsewhere.

Exactly. A MPH makes you smarter in some ways.