Matching....

[USAF_Dentman]

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How hard is it too match into a specialty, assuming of course, you have good grades and decent board scores.

The thing is, i was thinking about medical school, but i wont attend it if i will end up being a general or family practicioner. When i shadowed a general practicioner, i was bored and would go nuts if i had to do that for the rest of my life....I'm not the best student (3.65, neuroscience) but i have alright grades.

Some have told me that if you're not near the top of class in grades in board scores, you'll end up as a general practicioner.

Did anyone else have these worries at first?

 

[jdig]

your question is sort of broad. but based on my experience so far, i will try to give you an idea....
specialties go through cycles of popularity which are very difficult to predict. so by the time you get through med school (4-8 years? not sure what stage you are at) the specialty you desire may or may not be competitive.
so if the specialty you want isnt very competitive at the time you are ready to match, lower grades and step one will possibly get you matched, it may not be the best program, but you should be able to get something with your gpa and a decent step one.
general practitioners are sort of a dying breed. that is generally someone who only does a one year internship and goes right into practice. most of gp's are being replaced by fp's and im's.
but, you have to understand one concept. a gp's office will generally have a pretty good amount of variety. i am not sure what part of it bored you, but specialties are so specific that the varity is really less, you will see much of the same stuff on a daily basis, do the same procedures, blah blah blah... my point is, specialties usually have less variety than gp's offices, so if you were bored there you would probably be really bored in a specialty and you may honestly want to re-think things before investing alot of time and $$$ in med school. good luck!

 

[Ergo]

3.65 is a good GPA, good enough for admission to med school. Get a 27-30 on the MCAT and you'll get in somewhere. Review courses are worth the money and time. Do tons of practice questions.

You need to have an open mind about which med school and residency locations are acceptable to you. If you are flexible and will go wherever accepted then it gets easier to match successfully in a competitive specialty. Its OK to start med school with the knowledge that you want to go into a specialty. You do need to have the desire to use science and help people. Youve got to like people, even if you dont want to interact with them as much(radiology.) The primary are guy you followed might have just been a boring guy, I shadowed some interesting and some super boring ones before (even though Im not interested in their field.) Every practice is different.
Also, keep an open mind when rotating and experience all the specialties. Its surprising how many people find someting else more interesting during 3rd year.

In med school study long and efficiently, ignore long texts except for specific difficult concepts and instead learn as much as possible of the material in board review and high yield books . Memorize lecture notes by reading them repeatedly. Do practice questions from Board simulator series or pretest books. Many may disagree about focusing on the review materials + lecture ntes, but med school is about using time wisely. 80% of the tested concepts will be in 20% of the material available to you. If you are a normal person and dont have a photographic memory youll need to read things a few times and think through it before a test. Better to know very well the most important concepts than know a little about a galaxy of factoids that might not be on the test. Anyway, for med school the whole point of first and second year is learning STEP 1 material and either making top 15% of the class or not. That makes you a part of the AOA honor society which helps alot with the most elite residencies. BUT you can still get in without being AOA if you ace the STEP 1 test. On the other hand, if you flop STEP 1 its really tough to recover, even if your grades were high.

Even for competitive residencies the grades and board scores are not unreachable. If you can read and remember facts, work well with others (are usually a likable person) and are a good standardized test taker and can get your self to work hard for a goal than you will do very well. 3rd year clinical rotation grades are more important than any other grades. Remember facts, be friendly, and work hard to do well.

People on this forum are always inflating the numbers for admission to spots in competitive specialties. In reality a 220-230 is the interview minimum cutoff for many of the competitive specialties, and this is not a 99th % score.This is (i cant remember..) like 80th%. And thats against all US and international test takers. A good STEP 1 score plus research/publication and AOA (if you can get it, its ok if you dont) will get you a spot in a competitive specialty somewhere. Absolute toughest to get spots are Derm, Plastics, Rad Onc, slightly easier are ENT, Ortho... the list is on these forums somewhere.

 

[Mirror Form]

How hard is it too match into a specialty, assuming of course, you have good grades and decent board scores.

The thing is, i was thinking about medical school, but i wont attend it if i will end up being a general or family practicioner. When i shadowed a general practicioner, i was bored and would go nuts if i had to do that for the rest of my life....I'm not the best student (3.65, neuroscience) but i have alright grades.

Some have told me that if you're not near the top of class in grades in board scores, you'll end up as a general practicioner.

Did anyone else have these worries at first?

Don't worry, there are TONS of people in med school who are literally bored to tears with seeing patients in a family practice clinic. There is a very huge difference b/w seeing "out-patients" in an FP's clinic, versus seeing "in-patients" (i.e., patients admitted into the hospital) an Internal Medicine doctor.

It's not that tough to match into a non-fp residency. Anybody can become a hospitalist by doing Internal Medicine. General Surg is a little more competitive, but if you work hard during med school you shouldn't have much trouble matching. Plus there are plenty of other non-uber competitive fields like emergency medicine, anesthesia, etc . . .

 

[shemozart]

hey there....

to add two cents....board scores and grades aren't everything. i know plenty of us who are aoa and have scores in the 230s and 240s who are going into FP BY CHOICE (granted, mostly people who want to go rural and do "everything", which includes the "boring" outpatient clinics (depends on the practice you build), inpatient medicine, ER, and OB - not for everyone, there's a wide variety of practice and lifestyles to choose from and be happy with). Likewise, there are plenty of people who aren't at the top of the class and have mediocre scores who go into supposedly more "competitive" fields than FP. They found their niche and are getting plenty of interviews at this point; they weren't "relegated" to FP in any way. I found some fields that I had dismissed early on were the most interesting - you'll find your medical school will have some stronger departments, and you may be swayed in those directions inadvertantly. There are definitely cycles of interest; the trends when I entered med school are slightly different from those now that I'm graduating! And it will be very different in 4-5 more years. The pendulum definitely swings every 10 years or so as far as how competitive programs are.

I agree with the poster above who noted that there is a lot of repetition no matter which field you go into - I think the key is to find something that you like, keeping an open mind (I know I kept flipping between IM subspecialties (cards and pulm) and FP) and pick whatever feels right, realizing that "common things are common" and there will likely be diseases and conditions you see over and over again, regardless of whether you decide you like IM, cards, PMR, radiology, pathology, gen surg, FP. What differs in the various specialties is how/where/if the patient interaction takes place and your interest in the various subset of disease/conditions....everyone is happy/enjoys doing different things. Makes the world (and health care) a better place. (sorry to put you to sleep with that sticky sweet rhetoric at the end!) 😴

 

[USAF_Dentman]

hey there....

to add two cents....board scores and grades aren't everything. i know plenty of us who are aoa and have scores in the 230s and 240s who are going into FP BY CHOICE (granted, mostly people who want to go rural and do "everything", which includes the "boring" outpatient clinics (depends on the practice you build), inpatient medicine, ER, and OB - not for everyone, there's a wide variety of practice and lifestyles to choose from and be happy with). Likewise, there are plenty of people who aren't at the top of the class and have mediocre scores who go into supposedly more "competitive" fields than FP. They found their niche and are getting plenty of interviews at this point; they weren't "relegated" to FP in any way. I found some fields that I had dismissed early on were the most interesting - you'll find your medical school will have some stronger departments, and you may be swayed in those directions inadvertantly. There are definitely cycles of interest; the trends when I entered med school are slightly different from those now that I'm graduating! And it will be very different in 4-5 more years. The pendulum definitely swings every 10 years or so as far as how competitive programs are.

I agree with the poster above who noted that there is a lot of repetition no matter which field you go into - I think the key is to find something that you like, keeping an open mind (I know I kept flipping between IM subspecialties (cards and pulm) and FP) and pick whatever feels right, realizing that "common things are common" and there will likely be diseases and conditions you see over and over again, regardless of whether you decide you like IM, cards, PMR, radiology, pathology, gen surg, FP. What differs in the various specialties is how/where/if the patient interaction takes place and your interest in the various subset of disease/conditions....everyone is happy/enjoys doing different things. Makes the world (and health care) a better place. (sorry to put you to sleep with that sticky sweet rhetoric at the end!) 😴

Its not the repetition that gets me, its just the type of work more or less. I can deal with repetition and at times i enjoy it. I liked endocrinology for a long time and was hoping to do something with that. But i'm also a hands on type. I love working with my hands, but i'm not too fond of many of the surgical specialities. So for the most part, its all wait and see.

Thanks for all the input, its appreciated.. 🙂

 

[shemozart]

Its not the repetition that gets me, its just the type of work more or less. I can deal with repetition and at times i enjoy it. I liked endocrinology for a long time and was hoping to do something with that. But i'm also a hands on type. I love working with my hands, but i'm not too fond of many of the surgical specialities. So for the most part, its all wait and see.

Thanks for all the input, its appreciated.. 🙂

You will find something you like! Another thing the clinical years will introduce you to are the specialties and subspecialties that aren't always well-advertised until you're in med school; the ones people have usually only vaguely heard of unless they know someone in the field or have personal experience with it. 😀 Like interventional radiology and nuclear med (which might go along with endocrinology!), or even critical care, med-peds, gyn/onc, perinatology, anesthesiology, pain specialist, trauma surgery, nephrology, and everything in between.

Good luck with your journey! I hope you find something that makes you satisfied...sounds like you will!

 

[njbmd]

How hard is it too match into a specialty, assuming of course, you have good grades and decent board scores.

The thing is, i was thinking about medical school, but i wont attend it if i will end up being a general or family practicioner. When i shadowed a general practicioner, i was bored and would go nuts if i had to do that for the rest of my life....I'm not the best student (3.65, neuroscience) but i have alright grades.

Some have told me that if you're not near the top of class in grades in board scores, you'll end up as a general practicioner.

Did anyone else have these worries at first?

Hi there,
It is very difficult to determine the benefits and liabilities of a specialty by shadowing especially if you have not attended medical school. I was totally convinced that I would be an adolescent medicine pediatric specialist when I started medical school but now I am headed for vascular surgery fellowship. When I scrubbed my first surgical case as a third year medical student, I was hooked for life.

Going into family medicine or internal medicine is not a consolation prize for not getting into a specialty. Most of my classmates who went into family medicine or internal medicine chose those specialties because they enjoyed the patients and the work. They hated everything about surgery and surgical specialties.

As you attend medical school, you will find that your fate is entirely in your hands much the same as undergraduate. If you work hard and study smart, you get the grades that enable you to choose any field that you want. If not, you still have choices but you may have a difficult time matching into the more competitive specialties such as derm, optho, ortho, and neurosurgery. If you want these specialties, you need to do well in all of your coursework.

Interesting fact, the person who graduated at the bottom of my class matched at their first choice for specialty. It just worked out that way. If you have the desire and the work ethic, you will have the career that you want.

Good luck and relax. Worrying about matching before you even attend medical school is putting the cart in front of the horse and horses are not known for their pushing ability.

njbmd 🙂

 

[NinerNiner999]

Also keep in mind that if you want to specialize in a medical field that does not offer a direct post-residency board certification (i.e. requires a fellowship), that you might be spending 3-6 years after medical school practicing exactly what you dislike now, and doing it as a resident.