Realistic Residency Options?

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PieceOfGum1

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Hey all,

Exceedingly mediocre medical student here at a low-tier MD school. I have no leadership, bare minimum extracurriculars (I just have the minimum volunteering requirements for our curriculum, nothing else), no research involvement at all, and worst of all, 2 FAILED preclinical classes. I failed one class M1 and then another M2 year, and remediated them both. I'm still graduating in 4 years.

I recently took Step 1 and Passed it, although I had to use extra time for it and had to sacrifice my Career Exploratory block to have more study time. I'm starting my first actual rotation soon.

So yeah, I'm possibly the worst med student in my class. I have made several improvements in how I studied over the years though, and my final few modules I did very well, finally exceeding even the class average. And I'm proud of myself for passing Step 1 on my first try.

Now, I will try my best for Rotations, but being realistic I will likely not be anything to special, that's just how I am. And I'm predicting my Step 2 to be average, although I will try my absolute best to it.

With today being Match Day and all, I'm just trying to think about my future prospects. My biggest interests have been: Anesthesiology, Neurology, PM&R, and Internal Medicine.

Which of these are realistic for me to pursue, so I can try and maybe find relevant research for them, try and network, start thinking of aways/auditions? For example, if I have no realistic hope for Anesthesiology because of 2 red flags of 2 failed courses short of like a 270 on Step 2, I'd rather have that bandaid ripped off now and have the mindset of working towards something actually attainable and realistic given my shortcomings. I need to be economical with the research I get and the connections/rotations I try to make, so any insight would be appreciated. Anyone else found themselves in my position, bad-performing med student with red flags, and still found moderate success in matching?

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Neurology, PM&R, and IM are all not super competitive, so as long as you're not focusing on the tippy-top residencies in those fields, I imagine you should be able to find something as a USMD/DO. I'm honestly not sure how competitive anesthesiology is these days, or for that matter radiology (which it looks like you were interested in in past threads).

Just do the best you can, show interest and be invested in relevant rotations (IM/neuro tend to be part of core rotations), take step 2 seriously, and find mentors who can help guide you.
 
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Neurology, PM&R, and IM are all not super competitive, so as long as you're not focusing on the tippy-top residencies in those fields, I imagine you should be able to find something as a USMD/DO. I'm honestly not sure how competitive anesthesiology is these days, or for that matter radiology (which it looks like you were interested in in past threads).

Just do the best you can, show interest and be invested in relevant rotations (IM/neuro tend to be part of core rotations), take step 2 seriously, and find mentors who can help guide you.
Radiology and anesthesia have become very competitive lately given that salaries are ~500k/yr and it's easy to get a job.
 
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Radiology and anesthesia have become very competitive lately given that salaries are ~500k/yr and it's easy to get a job.
Particularly radiology in terms of research being a soft requirement (hard requirement at T20 programs) when it used to be considered unnecessary just a few years ago
 
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I'd suggest seeing how your initial rotations go, what you like and don't like, and go from there. Sounds like you have your 3rd year rotation schedule. Primary care along with the ones you noted (IM, Neuro, and PM&R) would probably be options for you. Maybe look into some mentoring relationships in one or more of these areas.
 
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