Rate the following items in terms of importance regarding fellowship applications

[one11]

The literature and the NRMP publish enough data about whats important and whats not from the programs directors perspective in terms of residency applications. But there is almost no data when it comes to fellowships.

Rate the following items beginning with the most important to the least important when it comes to applications to competitive peds fellowships (Cardio, NICU, EM...etc):

1- Where trained in for peds residency
2- PD letter of recommendation
3- letters from faculty within the same specialty
4- Research
5- USMLE scores
6- Demonstrate overall interest in the specialty (personal statement, research, electives, letters from faculty )..
7- Connections
8- Other things??

Thanks.

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[oldbearprofessor]

I don't think is meaningful to numerically rank these things as there is so much variability and there aren't a whole lot of specialty PDs or former PDs on SDN in the pedi forum to analyze the data. However, I can tell you as one of those types of people that I think we gave a lot of weight to letters from key faculty, a moderate amount of weight to research and where trained, and paid attention to USMLE/COMLEX scores mostly in terms of very high or low scores and fails. We gave little value to the PD letter unless it was noteworthy in content, didn't pay much attention to the PS except to identify academic interests and connections only mattered if they were writing a letter of rec having worked with the applicant. As always, YMMV.

 

[SurfingDoctor]

I'm going to tell you personally (hence don't assume what I'm saying will be true for everyone you interview with), but the thing I care most about is what is your 5 to 10 year plan after fellowship. Do you want to do private practice? Do you want to do academics? What do you think you need to achieve your 10 year goals? What skills do you have coming in and what skills are you missing? What do you think our program can offer (or what can it not) to help you achieve what your goals?

Someone can look good on paper, with the things you mentioned above, and have absolutely no longterm plan other than graduate from fellowship. Alternatively, someone could be mediocre on paper, but have a passion and a clearly laid plan of what kind of specialist they want to be well beyond fellowship training. Granted, you have to get your foot in the door, and so the paper (er... electronic) package including everything you mentioned is important, but once you've got your foot in the door, it becomes less important. When it comes to ranking applicants, personally, I would be more interested in the latter applicant than the former. And at least from our internal discussions about fellow applicants during rank list time, most of my colleagues appear to agree as we rank applicants in the latter group higher than the former group.

The only other thing that gets significant weight is, as oldbear mentioned, the USMLE scores (well, and red flags such as prior misdemeanors/felonies, gaps in education/training related to disciplinary action). This is simply because programs have to report board pass rates to the ACGME and these scores give a general indication of whether or not someone will be able to pass the boards after fellowship graduation. A fellowship program usually doesn't want to take applicants who are at risk of not passing the boards because it makes the program look bad.

 

[FlowLimited]

I can't tell you which of those things is the most important. Pediatric subspecialties tend to be relatively small communities where people know each other. Given that, I think that a strong letter from a respected person within the field would carry a lot of weight.