Residencies in Philadelphia

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biggimpin

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I am an MD2 currently doing an MD program in PA (not Philly) and was wondering what is the likelihood of matching in IM in Philly and whether or not it would be smart to only apply to residencies in the Philly area (I know there are like 12-15 for IM). I have a wife and a step son currently living there who obviously have their roots dug in there with work and school and it would definitely cause a strain for them to move to a new city. So I just want to know what is the likelihood of matching an IM residency in Philly especially if I were to apply to basically all of them?

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This is a pointless discussion without your step scores, research productivity, clinical grades, so take everything with a grain of salt.

Looking at "Charting the outcomes," people who match IM rank 11 programs on average. People generally have to apply to more than that to get to get that many interviews. So yes, you'll likely need to apply outside of Philly to have a good shot a matching.
 
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The Philly programs range from amazing (UPenn) to somewhat crappy (Suburban Community Hospital) and everything in between, so there's nothing that would prevent you from going there regardless of competitiveness. But like ndafife said, I wouldn't apply only to Philly programs unless you're a competitive candidate.
 
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I understand without those it is tough to say exactly what I can expect. I am just wondering in general if this is something that is feasible or if it is unrealistic.

As things stand right now, my latest step 1 practice score was around 227 and that was with some review over the previous months and getting through about 20% of UWorld questions and having never learned Repro or Psych. I still have two months until I sit for it with one of those being dedicated so I am hoping to get above 240. My research up to this point has probably been a little subpar (a lot of experience but not publications). Obviously haven't gotten clinical grades.
I'm not saying you need to apply to places on the west coast, just saying you should expand your bubble a bit. Maybe you end up being able to interview at all of the Philly programs and it doesn't matter that you applied to places in Virginia, western PA, etc... What you don't want is to be in a position where you only apply to the 12-15 Philly programs and find yourself only interviewing at 5-6 of them and then you leave yourself stressing about whether you are even going to be able to match for a couple of months. You can/should still rank those Philly programs at the top of your list, but the next couple months are a lot more comfortable if you have a few places ranked beyond that.

And this also brings up another question, say you show a ton of improvement over the next 2 months and score in the high 240's. Are you going to be content, as EmergDO put it, at a somewhat crappy suburban community hospital?
 
I know for a fact that Drexel/Hahnemann IM program has taken Caribbean graduates so I think you should be fine as long as you don't proverbially **** the bed on your application.
 
I am an MD2 currently doing an MD program in PA (not Philly) and was wondering what is the likelihood of matching in IM in Philly and whether or not it would be smart to only apply to residencies in the Philly area (I know there are like 12-15 for IM). I have a wife and a step son currently living there who obviously have their roots dug in there with work and school and it would definitely cause a strain for them to move to a new city. So I just want to know what is the likelihood of matching an IM residency in Philly especially if I were to apply to basically all of them?

If you're an American MD with decent scores and can interview well, you'll get into Drexel's IM program. It's a good program too, it's just filled with IMG's.
 
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