possible to land a highly competitive fellowship from a low-tier residency?

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Is it possible to get a fellowship in child psych at a place like Columbia or UCSF, from a low-ranked residency program filled with 60% FMGs? If so...how would one do that? Just do well in the exams you take during residency, and impress the hell out of your attendings in order to get good recommendations and such?

Do they take into account your medical school performance? If so...how much do they consider it relative to your performance in residency?

 

[whopper]

Yes.

I've seen several residents from my own program get into great fellowships who were IMGs, though my program was not low ranked, more on the order of medium ranked.

The competition field for psychiatry fellowship tends to greatly drop vs residency.

Now of course this may change given that this year there was an upsurge with the amount of people going into psychaitry residency--which may create a delayed effect where fellowship may get harder & more competitive in 4 years time.

If so...how would one do that?

Well some programs literally don't fill up their spots. This includes some of the top fellowship programs. Several fellowships I've seen only have a handful of applicants (like 0-10) for 1 spot vs dozens to hundreds for 1 spot in residency.

Just do well in the exams you take during residency, and impress the hell out of your attendings in order to get good recommendations and such?

Yes, given that there's less applicants, fellowships are more willing to look at the person on an individualistic level, rather than filter everyone out via board scores, medschool grades & such. They didn't even look at PRITE scores, though if you do well on the PRITE, you might want to mention that in your applications to impress them.

Do they take into account your medical school performance?

I only saw one place do that out of about 10 programs, and the interviewer was really trying to do everything in his power to make me feel uncomfortable during the interview, which pretty much didn't faze me because I already got into a few programs that I wanted to be in more than that one, and have seen that type of thing too many times to care. The guy tried to pick at everything in my record, started asking me what I actually did during my vacations in a very condescending manner. Hey, fault me for being a human being who wants to have a mentor that I actually get along with. I know being a doctor I'm not supposed to have emotions & I'm supposed go for the guy with the highest prestige who treats me like a servant.......

I've known about a dozen people who got into fellowship, and none of them had their USMLE scores, or medschool scores brought up. The more important things were letters of recommendation & things you may have accomplished in residency such as publications, and work experience in the specific field you are applying into.

 

[NJWxMan]

Numerous Forensics fellowships slots went unfilled this year. In fact, several were in very well known programs.

 

[whopper]

With the upshift of applicants into psychiatry residency, these programs may become much more competitive, and for better or worse--the name will matter.

One program I know is in a place with a prestigious name, but the program itself is so-so. It'll become ultra competitive if the psychiatry upshift continues. Go to Yale for Art school if you want to break into movies or Pasadena School of Design, laymen are wowed with Yale, even though the latter is probably superior in several aspects.

But in any case, getting back to the original point, I've seen terrible residents get into top name programs, and very good residents get into little known programs.

 

[beezley]

this is totally non-specific but I interviewed at a midwestern community based residency program where 90% of the residents were not from US med schools and one of the 3rd year residents was looking at Child fellowships in big name programs on the East Coast.

 

[OldPsychDoc]

this is totally non-specific but I interviewed at a midwestern community based residency program where 90% of the residents were not from US med schools and one of the 3rd year residents was looking at Child fellowships in big name programs on the East Coast.

Agree--our community-based program has done very well at placing grads--USMG and IMG--in the fellowships they want.

 

[cleareyedguy]

Agreed--some residencies get way more qualified applicants than they have spots, and so their rosters tend to get filled with people with fairly uniform credentials (this is not equivalent to saying that they are equivalently talented, pleasant, and hard working), but their backgrounds do tend to look similar. Since relatively few people do fellowships, there tends to be quite a bit more of a range of academic background--thoug, havig said that, I assume that the programs are looking for the same sort of folks as the residencies (smart, pleasant, diligent, etc).