Med twitter making certain specialties harder to get into?

[calivianya]

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It'll find anything google finds. Papers, social media, that one college catalog pdf your name was in five years ago, whatever.

I’m actually kind of worried about this because I’m a complete ghost. Haven’t used my real name on Facebook or any social media in more than 15 years - and I closed down that old Facebook account I had in high school and made a new one instead so I wouldn’t have any of my original connections. I have some research but don’t have any publications yet. The only conference I’ve presented at is my school’s, where we get a pdf booklet of who the presenters were and such but they don’t publish the abstracts.

You google my name and don’t get a single result that has anything to do with me. There’s not even a single picture of me on google images. I’m low key wondering if that’s going to be a problem for the google-happy PDs.

Would any of you guys make the attempt to flesh out at least a linked in profile before app season in these circumstances?

 

[Lawpy]

It'll find anything google finds. Papers, social media, that one college catalog pdf your name was in five years ago, whatever.

Yep so it's not like there's an expectation to have social media.

 

[efle]

I’m actually kind of worried about this because I’m a complete ghost. Haven’t used my real name on Facebook or any social media in more than 15 years - and I closed down that old Facebook account I had in high school and made a new one instead so I wouldn’t have any of my original connections. I have some research but don’t have any publications yet. The only conference I’ve presented at is my school’s, where we get a pdf booklet of who the presenters were and such but they don’t publish the abstracts.

You google my name and don’t get a single result that has anything to do with me. There’s not even a single picture of me on google images. I’m low key wondering if that’s going to be a problem for the google-happy PDs.

Would any of you guys make the attempt to flesh out at least a linked in profile before app season in these circumstances?

I wouldn't sweat it, plenty of people also have common names that are too frequent to find an individual. Unless you're going derm or plastics I wouldnt bother making a LinkedIn or insta account etc

 

[Raryn]

It'll find anything google finds. Papers, social media, that one college catalog pdf your name was in five years ago, whatever.

Times like this makes me wish my name was John Smith.

 

[Steve_Zissou]

Times like this makes me wish my name was John Smith.

My name is very ethnic, but fortunately there is a very famous artist who shares my name in the country that I’m from and he is the only one who pops up if you search me.

 

[Mad Jack]

I, for once, do it like in the olden days and narrow down my potential specialties based on TV shows...

I wonder how many people used to be shocked annually that diagnosticians don't really exist because of House

 

[Mad Jack]

Times like this makes me wish my name was John Smith.

I'm a 1 of 1 name, despite it being rather bland sounding. Hiding under the radar is literally impossible, but thankfully I don't have much to hide

 

[TelemarketingEnigma]

Would any of you guys make the attempt to flesh out at least a linked in profile before app season in these circumstances?

I do this purposefully because I'm easily googleable (the only other person in the world i know of who shares my name combo doesn't even show up until like one hit on page 5), so it's nice to have something formal like linkedin at/near the top of my search results, above the random track meet results etc. I dunno if it matters if you have a more common name though

 

[Ms Procrastinator]

Nope!

Then it didn't happen

 

[FindersFee5]

I'd say the majority of applicants into fields like plastics now have carefully curated google hits for themselves on LinkedIn, twitter, and/or insta. Nobody can quantify this for you but I'm sure it's an advantage when a PD googles you and finds lots of pics of you looking hella fresh in a suit at plastics conferences and nothing for the next candidate after you.

I'm not in that group, but when I looked up my co-interviewees, there were definitely a higher than average (among med students) number of influencers or influencer wanna-bes.

 

[Ms Procrastinator]

I usually google myself to see what I find since my name combo isn't all that common. There are a few hits, but it's all school related. No social media stuff pops up even though they were once in my name.

 

[whataschool_classof24]

That's not really how any of this works though.

Imagine your #1 dream program. Perfect for you in every way - location, culture, academic resources, case volume, whatever. Now picture the PD being an oddball that likes to bump people up for commitment to the field, and imagine one of his ways to assess that is he googles his applicants.

Thats closer to reality and ending up in a worse fit (or for fields like plastics, not matching at all) isnt really a win by sparing you the spot.

You might be right in regards to cosmetic fields like plastics and derm, but I highly doubt an IM PD or gen surg PD is going to base their view on you based on social media. We are going into medicine not keeping up with the Kardashians (well that is if you're not going into derm/plastics)

 

[efle]

You might be right in regards to cosmetic fields like plastics and derm, but I highly doubt an IM PD or gen surg PD is going to base their view on you based on social media. We are going into medicine not keeping up with the Kardashians (well that is if you're not going into derm/plastics)

Stuff like IM and surg def not necessary, it's the hypercompetitive fields especially those with a cosmetic/patient facing sales element like you mention that I've been seeing more of it

And I dont blame the applicants at all. A study in radiology, of all fields, found that an attractive profile picture was worth as much as class rank IIRC. I'm sure for derm or plastics that's much worse.

 

[Lawpy]

Stuff like IM and surg def not necessary, it's the hypercompetitive fields especially those with a cosmetic/patient facing sales element like you mention that I've been seeing more of it

And I dont blame the applicants at all. A study in radiology, of all fields, found that an attractive profile picture was worth as much as class rank IIRC. I'm sure for derm or plastics that's much worse.

Does this mean rads PDs approve photoshopping or can they somehow tell

 

[Banco]

If you really dig into it, most of "med twitter" accounts that people make start posting things like the summer before residency apps begin. It's so transparent that the majority are just doing it for residency apps - if PD's for some reason value that, then lol...


We're also about 2-3 years away from people applying to plastics and getting a nose job so they can prove their interest and dedication to the field, and have something to write about in their PS.

 

[penguinspenguins]

If you really dig into it, most of "med twitter" accounts that people make start posting things like the summer before residency apps begin. It's so transparent that the majority are just doing it for residency apps - if PD's for some reason value that, then lol...


We're also about 2-3 years away from people applying to plastics and getting a nose job so they can prove their interest and dedication to the field, and have something to write about in their PS.

I purposefully got a detached retina in college to make my future Ophtho PS more meaningful!

/s

 

[Steve_Zissou]

If it makes you feel better, I've heard from some PDs during dinner meetings that they actually will skip certain applicants if they actually listed influencing as their "hobby" or in their application. Obviously, this is just my anecdote experience, but it did make me feel better about my lack of social media presence. And it shows that although it may work for some people and some programs, it really all depends and YMMV. For me, that's not enough of a guaranteed positive return to start investing my effort in.

I wouldn't really worry about the publication thing as long as you've got something down (and you do have research experience down). I have a pretty ethnic name, but it's also super common so half of my country pops up (yeah, even the people who are the opposite gender from me) when I'm googled so I'm literally everywhere and nowhere at the same time 😵

If I were reviewing applications and I saw “influencing” as a hobby, my first thought would be “what kind of dingus lists that as a hobby,” after which I would look at their picture and say to myself “this kind of dingus, apparently.”

 

[deleted1023831]

I, for once, do it like in the olden days and narrow down my potential specialties based on TV shows...

McDreamy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!