osteopathic residency programs

[ribcrackindoc]

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Has anyone interviewed at an osteopathic radiology residency program? particularly the one in Tulsa OK, Garden City in MI, and Botsford General Hospital in MI. How did these interviews go? Thanks a lot

 

[nub]

i'm also interested in these programs. If anyone has any info that would be great.

 

[iirish]

Hi,
I interviewed at Tulsa, Garden City, Columbus, Dayton, MSU(POH and Bi-County Henry Ford). I declined, for the sake of time, at Huron Valley and St. Barnabas. No invite from Botsford or TCOM(who knows if they are taking looking at applicants at the new JPS program). Did not apply to Chicago.
Here's my advice: There are a few programs that will NOT interview an applicant if they have not rotated. The two notorious for this are Botsford and POH. So, if your heart is set on either of these go and rotate early. DO NOT wait to rotate past October 15th at any osteopathic program. The reason is that the osteopathic programs begin to interview in October, thus you want your face in the mix before that time. If you are serious about osteopathic Rads, and want to save some money, i suggest doing a rotation in the Detroit area during the month of November-most of the Michigan programs interview in Nov. You can do this rotation in anything, the point is to be in the area. Ohio interviews in Oct. So you might consider a rotation in the area during this time as well.
Tulsa is a great program; lot's of pathology, lot's of work and great people. Weak didactics, but is improving. Cost of living is cheap.
Bi-County- Awesome didactics(all the MI programs have MSU lectures every Tues), decent pathology, good mix of pt. population. Lot's of driving btwn hospital's( four in all). cost of living in Detroit is high
Garden City- New program director. They had some problems in the past with probation, however, this new PD(DR. Volllman) is a big wig in post grad rad education and will have this program in top shape very soon.
Columbus (Doctors)- one of the nicest osteopathic hospital i have ever seen. Didactics are well organized at Ohio state. Cost of living is reasonable. Columbus is a great city to live. Very nice people in the program.
Dayton (Grandview)- a lot of work. will learn by reading lot's of film. didactics are weaker. Lot's of pathology. Decent place to live. cost of living is reasonable.
Can't comment on Botsford, Chicago, New York,or Huron Valley.
One more piece of advice, get your applications in early (CV, personal statement, deans letter, LOR, and transcripts). I would shoot for early August.
Oh, there is a new program opening up at Mt. Clemens Hosp in MI. Very nice hospital.
Most applicants know where they are going thru verbal agreements by mid Dec. I have yet to hear of anyone getting screwed with regard to the verbal agreement game. Hope this helps. Good luck!
IIrish

 

[Molly Maquire]

Hi,

I have received an interview offer from Botsford and did not rotate there. It is possible.

What do you mean by "verbal agreements"? I thought this was unethical.

thanks.

 

[giznut12]

What are the typical board scores of those matching in Osteopathic Rads?

 

[iirish]

Hi,

I have received an interview offer from Botsford and did not rotate there. It is possible.

What do you mean by "verbal agreements"? I thought this was unethical.

thanks.

Sorry, I didn't word that statement just right. Here is an exert from the AOA website under the match rules. That's great about Botsford. I was misinformed by some of the residents that i spoke with on other rotations. Good Luck.

"Prior to submitting preferences for the Match, students and institutions are expected to communicate openly and honestly with each other, to ensure the best possible match of interns and training programs. Institutions must provide complete and accurate information to applicants concerning the position(s) available, including all requirements for eligibility for appointment.

Students and institutions may express their interest in each other and may discuss their expected rankings of each other. Institutions may inform their most preferred applicants that they are in a favored position, and students may similarly inform their most preferred programs. However, institutions and students must not make statements implying or requesting a commitment, and must not pressure each other to reveal their ranking intentions. Although institutions or students may volunteer how they plan to rank each other, they must not request such information. Volunteered information must be limited to "very likely", "likely", or "unlikely" to rank in a top position.

Students and institutions must not make any verbal or written commitments or contracts for appointment prior to the release of the Match results. Any such verbal or written commitments are non-binding and have no effect on the Match. Institutions shall not impose or enforce local requirements in an attempt to subvert the fair application of these rules. Institutions violating Match rules by requesting ranking information from students, or by requiring students to make verbal or written commitments or contracts before the release of the Match results, may be sanctioned by the AOA and prohibited from recruiting in the subsequent Match."

 

[iirish]

What are the typical board scores of those matching in Osteopathic Rads?

I've heard of people matching with 70th percentile. that's the lowest that I know of; but that too may be wrong info. i would rotate, get along with everyone, and apply.

 

[Idiopathic]

Im pretty sure that ppl have matchd Rads below 70th percentile. That said, great scores never hurt anyone.

 

[snaggletooth]

Im pretty sure that ppl have matchd Rads below 70th percentile.

What are you saying?!? 75th percentile is the minimum required to PASS so I'm curious how it is someone can match into rads when they don't even have a medical license.

 

[DO_Surgeon]

What are you saying?!? 75th percentile is the minimum required to PASS so I'm curious how it is someone can match into rads when they don't even have a medical license.

One only needs 50 PERCENT of the questions correct to pass, I believe that is around 400. 75th PERCENTILE would mean if there are 100 students in a room your score would be the 75th best score. One could be in the lower 25th percentile and still pass.

 

[ribcrackindoc]

Snaggletooth said "75th percentile is the minimum required to PASS so I'm curious how it is someone can match into rads when they don't even have a medical license."
That's WAY off. A standard score of 400 is required to pass. The scale is designed to have a mean of 500 and a standard deviation of 73. So, 427 would be one standard deviation below the mean (16th percentile) and still pass. I've heard some crazy stuff about what the scores mean but yours takes the cake.

One only needs 50 PERCENT of the questions correct to pass, I believe that is around 400. 75th PERCENTILE would mean if there are 100 students in a room your score would be the 75th best score. One could be in the lower 25th percentile and still pass.

You're way off also. Medical students who do not understand statistics have coupled in their minds that since the test has ABOUT 800 questions, and most people score between 200 and 800, then one MUST get one point per question. One MUST have to get 400 questions correct to pass. Then they go around explaining this to other med students who blindly beleive it. THis is way off too. If I made the poorest performance in the nation and I got 700/800 questions correct, I would FAIL. It has NOTHING to do with how many questions you got correct. It only has to do with how you did relative to other people taking the test. And you're also wrong about 75th percentile being the 75th best score out of 100 students. It would actually be the 25th best score. If 100 students took the test, the top student would be in the 99th percentile. The dumbest would be in the zero percentile. Oh, and by the way, an 800 is not a perfect score, nor is it the highest score one can achieve. It just happens to be (800-500)/73 or 300/73 standard deviations above the mean. You also said that one could be 25th percentile and still pass. You're close, they DO pass. I haven't pounded out the numbers but my estimate based on the standard deviation of 73 and 400 failing is that about 11 or 12% fail.

This stuff isn't all that important, especially in a radiology thread where nobody is in danger of failing, but I wanted to dispell some of these myths. I hope it cleared thing up for ya.

Later

P.S. IT'S A GREAT DAY FOR AMERICA! GO DUBYA!

 

[nub]

How early in third year did you start setting up rotations?

any chance that the two people who have interviewed would be willing to post stats?

 

[Idiopathic]

Dont confuse COMLEX with USMLE, people. Passing on the COMLEX is 400, which is quite roughly 50% right (nobody really knows how it is scored), and this number is 100 points less than the average (500) and about 1.2 standard deviations below the mean. Passing is pretty much anything above 11th percentile, I believe.

70th percentile is probably somewhere around 570 or so.

 

[ribcrackindoc]

Dont confuse COMLEX with USMLE, people. Passing on the COMLEX is 400, which is quite roughly 50% right (nobody really knows how it is scored), and this number is 100 points less than the average (500) and about 1.2 standard deviations below the mean. Passing is pretty much anything above 11th percentile, I believe.

70th percentile is probably somewhere around 570 or so.

Nope, a 570 is just off of a 573 which is one standard deviation above the mean. One SD above the mean is 84th percentile, not 70th

 

[Vince]

How early in third year did you start setting up rotations?

any chance that the two people who have interviewed would be willing to post stats?

Not sure what stats you want, but I started setting up my 4th year rotations March 1st because that's the first day our school would accept requests. I had most of mine scheduled by the end of the third year, which was not the norm compared to other students at my school.

If you are asking regarding the DO programs, while I was interviewing at them, all are more interested if you had done a rotation with their program, or at least a DO rads program somewhere. That being said, I didn't do any DO rads rotations and I got interviews to all but one program which I applied to(Botsford), but this came up alot among all of them.

 

[Idiopathic]

Nope, a 570 is just off of a 573 which is one standard deviation above the mean. One SD above the mean is 84th percentile, not 70th

Semantics...555-560 then.

 

[ribcrackindoc]

for the students in the osteopathic match:

has anyone been offered a spot yet??????

from what i understand, most programs make their offers in december.

later

 

[BigPimpin]

I'm in the DO Rads match, and have heard nothing yet.

There are some interesting dynamics at work, here. By that I mean...from what I've learned from this board, and from what I hear from fellow students as well as Rads residents with whom I've spoken, I'm quite a good candidate numbers- and personality-wise. I did three out-of-town electives at three DO programs, and got interviews at two of them. The third place I did an elective never even contacted me to let me know they weren't going to interview me; this seemed a bit harsh, since they told me I was assured of at least an interview, having done good work on the rotation and having traveled hundreds of miles to be there for the month. When I inquired about my application status last week, the woman in charge told me she never saw my file/application again after she had given it to the Rads committee. Not even to reject it. But too bad, because the school's rank-list had been made and interviews were closed. The other programs where I did NOT do rotations but that I DID apply, I have heard nothing from them either way, so I think I can safely write them off (grin) now that we're into December.

Does anyone else think it's a bit rude to not even let you know if you're not getting an interview? I'm sure I'm not the first to say this in a thread here, but good gosh, it takes less than three minutes to fire off an email or a phone call. If they don't want to interview me, that sucks, but no real big deal...just let me know so I can cross them off my checklist.

As for the other DO places where I had interviews, still no word, but we were told that the "unofficial" contact would be sometime in the third week of the month, just before Christmas.

Good luck to all fellow Rads applicants........see you in the reading rooms.

BP

 

[ribcrackindoc]

I've yet to hear anything as well. I also was promised an interview from one place and they didn't offer me one. Couple days ago they write and say "unfortunately... blah blah blah....and we received over 36 applications...so we can't offer you an interview" What the heck is that? over 36 applications? does that mean 37? how bizarre! You would think they could round off to a better number.

I've heard that at least 2 programs have attendings with sons applying, and therefore those spots really don't exist. It is a small and political match so that does make for some interesting dynamics.

I also agree though that it's rude to not reject those students who won't be offered an interview.

Hey BP, would you mind saying which places you had interviews at? I'm curious which ones are saying they will make offers before xmas
later

 

[tylerdo]

I wanted to know how much the programs focus on board scores as a cut off or if they look at your whole file and your personality etc. as a whole, I didn't do stellar the boards but, I have really enjoyed my radiology rotations and recieved a great recommendation letter from one of them. I understand that radiology is very competetive but, I really enjoy it and I don't want to be deferred just because of one score. The rest of my file is great, I did very well the first two years of med school and have recieved high honors on all of my rotations so far. so what do you think? any advice?

 

[BigPimpin]

Hey ribcrackindoc, I sent you a private message.

In response to tylerdo...from what I have seen, it varies from place to place. In some places, doing a rotation there is more important than boards. In others, no matter if you did ten electives there, if you don't have the boards, you won't get a glance. I even hear that it depends on who has the most say-so on these committees; at places where the attendings have more power, board scores are paramount. At places where the residents have the real pull on who gets a spot, they go more by the interview and whether they think they can trust you and work with you for several years. Total crapshoot.

I think there are people on this board who serve on committees or at least have inside info regarding this kind of thing, so their information will be more valuable.

Again, good luck to all Rads applicants.

BP

 

[DrKatie2009]

I have always wanted to be a Radiologist, and now I have decided to go to an osteopathic medical school. Are there both Radiology D.O. and M.D. residency programs? I only thought that there were M.D. programs until I read a few posts on SDN. I would appreciate any advice anyone could give me on this subject because I really don't know much about the process. Thanks 🙂

 

[Heeed!]

I have always wanted to be a Radiologist, and now I have decided to go to an osteopathic medical school. Are there both Radiology D.O. and M.D. residency programs? I only thought that there were M.D. programs until I read a few posts on SDN. I would appreciate any advice anyone could give me on this subject because I really don't know much about the process. Thanks 🙂

There are currently 10 DO Rads residencies. Go here and register. (You'll need your AOA #). Then click "Student and Resident Resources" followed by clicking on the "Opportunities" logo. Then start searching.