1- IMG on J1 visa
2- research: how many, what type, published or not: Before residency, 2 years of bench research and 1 first author bench research paper. During residency, 1 joint first author original paper, 1 case report published.
3- posters or oral presentations? Abstracts: 5 case report abstracts, >20 retrospective abstracts (first and second author) (7 of them are oral presentations in 1 national, 3 regional, 3 local conferences and the rest are poster presentations in national conferences)
4- Did you do a year of sleep medicine prior to applying: no sleep, no chief, no gap. PGY 3 IM resident, 2 away electives, one at nearby university, and another at sleep clinic at nearby community hospital. I do have a Masters of BIotechnology before starting residency and 2 years of research along with it.
5- your residency program( university vs community): Small affiliated community program in midwest
6- How many invitations you received: applied 136, 27 invitations, attended 24.
7- USMLE 1/2/3: 253/251/226
8- where did you match?: Rank #1, Top-notch program in east coast renowned in Critical care. NIH track. It's a dream coming true. I am going insane with joy!
I want to pass some advice to future IMG visa applicants, coming from small community programs, especially aspiring for academic careers.
1) First and foremost, nothing is impossible. Don't let anyone tell you you can't do it. As long as you are willing to put the hard work and earn it, you will be able to do it. It is extremely hard, an uphill battle, but not impossible. I did it coming from the same background as you.
2) asdfTT123 advice from above is solid gold and I couldn't have said it any better. Read them up and down, especially about having well-crafted career interests, having clear idea of what you want to do, or subspecialize in terms of clinical practice, research focus. You don't have to know it at day 1, but they should see a path taking shape in your cv and personal statement.
3) J1 visa versus H1 visa is very important, and H1 is a huge barrier to getting into any decent university program unless you can get into Mayo or Cleveland Clinic. But again there are some renowned universities that still sponsor an H1 visa, though very very few in number.
As a J1 holder, you cannot get into any T32 sponsored tracks. Most academic tracks that I interviewed are T32 sponsored, so you have to specifically ask for internal departmental funds to sponsor your 4th research year and rank these programs high on your list. Don't get into T32 programs and realize later that you are not eligible for T32.
4) MENTORS ARE EVERYTHING. Who your mentor is and where your mentor is from decides what high you can climb in the fellowship ladder. Letters from mentors were read up and down, word to word, and makes or breaks your match. You might be in a community program, but it is important to establish mentorship with people from nearby universities or even renowned universities. Email people since day 1 of your residency, socialize in conferences, say hi to people, enroll in the mentorship committee and programs that societies offer. I got my mentor from the AHA conference, and ever since then, Game changer.
5) Interview skills: very very important. Because in fellowship selection, there are only 400-700 applications that Program directors are reviewing and only invites 10-50 people depending on program size, they read your ERAS CV, PS, LORs and everything in your application very thoroughly and asks very deep and intellectually challenging questions. You will be interviewing at least 20-30 mins with each interviewer, and there will be at least 3 to even 8 interviews like this in every program. If your luck would have it, you can be stuck with one interviewer for 1-1.5 hours during scheduling or timing issues. (Happens with me in my rank 1 program. I was interviewed 1.5 hours in both locations, just because of scheduling glitches). Know your projects up and down, know your mentors and their work, their career, be prepared to talk about your career goals post-fellowship, subspecialization (Pul HTN, lung transplant, cystic fibrosis, IP, ILD, etc), your family, spouses, background, be ready to chit chat about everything and nothing and be pleasant and likable. This is not something you can get away with making up lies or memorizing answers. (I personally helped residency applicant with interview practice for 3 years since I start residency, so that helped enormously)
6) Coming from an IMG visa background, community program setting, know that you have to do everything and 3 times more that everyone else is doing. I was an outstanding resident, did clinical duties effectively, did all the research at my personal time, attended and presented 2-3 conferences every year, paid out of pocket for manuscript fees, conference fees, attended 2 chest simulation courses, bought butterfly ultrasound myself, and replied to my mentors every single email within 1 day, and finished projects they ask within 1 week, regardless of whether I am in ICU or floor or night float. All this hard work that you put down shines in your cv, reflected in your letters, and personal statement and that enabled me to break the existing barriers and climb high.
7) Think about critical care fellowship and sleep fellowship, and plan ahead. Pulmonary & Critical Care is competitive but this is not as hard as residency or GI or cardio fellowship to speak of. Straight PCCM Fellowship is not the only way to get it, you can do sleep and apply again, you can do critical care first, then do pulmonary later. You can do academic hospitalist, do research and apply again. Putting down extra years of research somewhere in your career is important, and not necessarily a bad thing, they want to see that dedication to select you into it.
8) Be humble, be nice, be passionate and be sincere to everyone you met, you never know who can help you with what down the line.
If I did it, so can you. So fight on, soldiers. Cheers!
, a mid tier University program on the west coast, did not do away rotation
