Recommendations for M3 interested in ortho?

[GolDRoger]

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Hey all,

Wanted to see if anyone has any recommendations for me and what I should do to increase my chances for ortho. Current M3

Here are a bit of my stats and experiences:

School: US MD, lower tier school
Pass/fail grades and passed everything M1 and M2. So far haven't honored a clerkship but all passes. I'm in my surgery clerkship right now and hoping to honor. We just have honor/pass/fail.

ECs:

- Most of my ECs involve standardized test tutoring. I've been working almost full time in medical school (full time M1 and M2 and ~30 hours per week in M3). I've been doing ACT/SAT test prep since 2015, worked for several companies and founded my own tutoring business, which I am still involved in but hard to chase leads in M3 year so now I mainly work for a big MCAT company and help develop content/teach classes.

-Part of the ortho interest group but not leadership on that

- Various volunteering organizations I've been a part of since before med school

- I was a medical assistant in Ortho and registered orthopedic tech before medical school which I am putting on there.

Research: 3 pubs so far in ortho trauma, 1 case study the other 2 were retrospective papers. I'm second author on all of these. Working on 2-3 more papers currently which are meta analysis and I'll be first author on them. One of them will be published hopefully in time for ERAS.

Presentations: One of the pubs in ortho trauma we presented at 4 conferences, have around 2 awards (1st place podium and 1st place poster at 2 different conferences)

Letters: Have one letter from an ortho PD from at a DO program (not sure if that affects anything). It is a very strong letter. Rotated with him as an elective and did research with him and the residents at that program for the past 3 years.


Obviously, right now I'm just trying to focus on Step 2 and kiling that while working on some more research. Was wondering if you all have any other recommendations or anything else I can do to improve my chances. Also wanted to ask if there is a certain number of aways that I should aim for? As of now planning to do 2-3 but not sure if that's sufficient.

Thank you all so much

 

[Saturday’s Child]

Would aim for 3 aways at a minimum. I’ve had friends from lower tier schools do 4, especially if they don’t have a home program. Look at current resident classes on programs’ websites to get an idea of whether they accept students from your kind of school.

At this point, I wouldn’t worry much about research unless it’s strengthening a relationship with a letter writer. Your research will not be a strength of your app, it won’t be the reason a program likes you. You’ve done enough to talk about during interviews, which is all you need.

 

[GolDRoger]

Would aim for 3 aways at a minimum. I’ve had friends from lower tier schools do 4, especially if they don’t have a home program. Look at current resident classes on programs’ websites to get an idea of whether they accept students from your kind of school.

At this point, I wouldn’t worry much about research unless it’s strengthening a relationship with a letter writer. Your research will not be a strength of your app, it won’t be the reason a program likes you. You’ve done enough to talk about during interviews, which is all you need.

Thanks so much for this - will try to do 3 at least