Hi! I have a question. I'm a PAVE student from Russia, just a couple weeks ago passed NAVLE, have a potential employer (small animal practice) in the US. But.. the thing is I REALLY want to get into radiology internship and after that continue in residency program. Have experience in ultrasound and radiography around 10 years (in Russia). The most important question is what if I work in practice for 1 year starting this Sept., would it be possible to go to rad internship after that? I've heard that if you drop out from academia to private practice (instead of going to academic rotating internship) it's near to impossible to get back and get match in VIRMP because references are of lower quality, they mean less than that from academia doctors. Please guys give me advice! P.S. Employer is really nice guy, willing to be a sponsor for my internship in future.
radiology internship after a year in practice... Is it possible?
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I've never heard of someone matching directly to a specialty internship without having first completed a rotating internship. Might be possible but probably also highly unlikely. References from clinicians out in private practice aren't necessarily "lower quality", the clinicians may just be less well known because they're not as involved in research. I did my rotating internship in private practice (and not a famous one like Angell or AMC either) and matched to a residency on my first application. You don't have to be in academia in order to match successfully.
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I think the main thing is that you’re going to need support/a letter of recommendation from a radiologist, and it may be difficult to get that if you work in GP. And I believe that many programs want rads research too? If you’re a go-getter and talk to your local specialists, set of shadowing, etc it may be possible in theory. I bet you’ll have to do a rotating internship first before you’re successful though. When the vast majority of applicants have one or more internships you will probably get skipped over without the same experiences. There may be some programs that look down on non-academic experience, but I did a non-academic rotating internship and it didn’t hold me back significantly. There are many great surgeons/internists/radiologists in private specialty practice. For my own specialty when we reviewed residency applications, we tossed out anyone who didn’t have a letter of rec from a clinical pathologist. I imagine a similar thing applies for radiology, which is one of the more competitive ones I’ve heard. That may be part of why people in academia have more success since the specialists working with you are close by and not a random person across the world reading out digital rads?
Also keep in mind that the match has a definitive timeline. If you start working September 2018, match for 2019 will open November/December 2018, rank lists will be due in January 2019, and you’ll see if you’ve matched in Feb 2019. Then you’d start an internship June 2019. September to November isn’t much time to make connections, but if you put it off another year (provided you matched) you’d be in GP almost two years total, from Sept 2018 until June 2020. Just something to keep in mind.
Also keep in mind that the match has a definitive timeline. If you start working September 2018, match for 2019 will open November/December 2018, rank lists will be due in January 2019, and you’ll see if you’ve matched in Feb 2019. Then you’d start an internship June 2019. September to November isn’t much time to make connections, but if you put it off another year (provided you matched) you’d be in GP almost two years total, from Sept 2018 until June 2020. Just something to keep in mind.
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Maybe @hygebeorht has thoughts?
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Sure do! I hope I am of some help.
I second what people have said here about letters of rec, application timeline, and competitiveness of the specialty. Match rate this year was about 15%, and I don’t expect it to rise anytime soon. I will be beginning a residency program in July. I didn’t match, but was unbelievably lucky to obtain a position outside of match.
Every residency program looks for something different. You have to be a competitive applicant to start with (good grades, good resume, good LORs - at least one of which should be a radiologist). Then each program weights things differently. Some care more about grades than research, others want lots of clinical experience. It’s worth reaching out to programs and asking what type of person is a successful resident for them.
When you say sponsor, do you mean your employer wants to pay the cost of training you through a residency? That is great - but you’ll still have to find a program that wants to train you.
I agree that working alongside well-known radiologists is an important goal if you want to match to either a residency or specialty internship. If you can do it, consider working emergency at a specialty practice that has radiologists instead of doing GP work. Gulf Coast springs to mind. You may also need to push your timeline out a bit. September is pretty late in the year to start building relationships.
Feel free to PM me if you want to chat more.
I second what people have said here about letters of rec, application timeline, and competitiveness of the specialty. Match rate this year was about 15%, and I don’t expect it to rise anytime soon. I will be beginning a residency program in July. I didn’t match, but was unbelievably lucky to obtain a position outside of match.
Every residency program looks for something different. You have to be a competitive applicant to start with (good grades, good resume, good LORs - at least one of which should be a radiologist). Then each program weights things differently. Some care more about grades than research, others want lots of clinical experience. It’s worth reaching out to programs and asking what type of person is a successful resident for them.
When you say sponsor, do you mean your employer wants to pay the cost of training you through a residency? That is great - but you’ll still have to find a program that wants to train you.
I agree that working alongside well-known radiologists is an important goal if you want to match to either a residency or specialty internship. If you can do it, consider working emergency at a specialty practice that has radiologists instead of doing GP work. Gulf Coast springs to mind. You may also need to push your timeline out a bit. September is pretty late in the year to start building relationships.
Feel free to PM me if you want to chat more.
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You'll definitely have to go through a rotating internship before getting a specialty internship. For a rotating internship, you don't have to have letters from your specialty of interest. On the other hand, for a residency, you must have letters from radiologists. How many simply depends on how many radiologists are at that practice. If there are 3-4 and you only have one letter from a radiologist, that will be looked at as a red flag. If there is only one, it makes sense for only one letter to be from a radiologist.
Letters from board-certified specialists in private practice are not worth less than from people in academia. There are basically two goals for a letter: it is from a specialist and it shows strong support of your application. A candidate with fantastic letters from private practice will (virtually) always get a position over someone with "only slightly above average letters" from academia.
Letters from board-certified specialists in private practice are not worth less than from people in academia. There are basically two goals for a letter: it is from a specialist and it shows strong support of your application. A candidate with fantastic letters from private practice will (virtually) always get a position over someone with "only slightly above average letters" from academia.
