Residency advice to a 3rd year med student?

[Timmythemic22]

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Hi All,

I'm sure this is probably a highly unoriginal thread, but I'm having a great deal of trouble right now (I DID read the stickies). I'm a 3rd year med student and 4th year is rapidly looming overhead.

I'm just having a helluva lot trouble of starting out in my process of picking residencies to which I will apply. I'm really looking for some source that at least semi-objectively rates them on competition for entrance as well as how many surgeons they place in fellowships.

I have somewhat of an idea about things I'm looking for, but I don't even know if my expectation are even remotely realistic:

-a key point is a more Resident-friendly environment (ie a less abusive surgical hierarchy) I know this essentially may predispose me to a less competitive program, and I may be comfortable with that

-I would ultimately like to find a fellowship (surg-onc is incredibly interesting to me), but the fact that I may be looking for less competitive programs may preclude this

-Localizing more on the coasts (primarily Northeast, south)

I would briefly describe myself as slightly above average. Hit above the mean on Step I for Gen surg, essentially HP most clerkships, but good reccomendations for my work ethic and ability to work with teams and patients

Am I being realistic in my expectations? If I am, where can I find a list of the programs ranked on competition and things like resident happiness?

I hope I'm not making foolish statements.

Thanks,
Tim

 

[doc05]

you're right -- a highly unoriginal thread. first, you should speak with residents and attendings (esp the chair and program director) and get their opinions of what's out there. as a plus, they can directly compare other places to your current institution.

in the south, look at louisville, unc, duke, emory, miami, uab, vandy, uth, baylor, utsw.

 

[SouthernSurgeon]

Good sources of info:
-Your home school faculty (esp if your home program director and/or chair are approachable and help advise students)
-Your home school junior residents (they went through this process a couple years ago)
-Your home school fourth years

As far as a "list" of programs - we can all start naming off random programs for you but without knowing you, your application, your schools' and faculties' connections, it's all meaningless.

 

[beaverfetus]

there is a recurring push-back on these threads. 3rd years want information about the residency application process, they want specific details about programs, they want these topics hashed and rehashed from different angles. In short general surgery applicants on this forum want what neurosurgery (uncleharvey.com) has or ortho (orthomatch.)

The surgical sub specialty websites mentioned above have helpful reviews from applicants, and endless what are my chances type topics. For whatever reason the general surgery applicant pool just doesnt have a dedicated website. These sdn forums are sporadically helpful, scutwork.com has some program reviews but is polluted by program advertisements masquarading as reviews, and 3rd years prattling on about their clerkship. Good luck finding residents who give a good candid drawn out description of programs they visited. I'd love to read an interview diary from a broadly applied gen surg applicant. Any volunteers?

 

[Timmythemic22]

My apologies all.

I wasn't really expecting anyone to list actual place where I should apply as I know you all don't know me well. I was looking for direction as to where to find somewhat of an idea of the priorities of each institution (ambitious, laid back, etc) like a book or magazine that might succinctly categorize things, just to use as a jumping off point.

You have given me advice and I will take it. Sorry for clogging the boards.

 

[Winged Scapula]

My apologies all.

I wasn't really expecting anyone to list actual place where I should apply as I know you all don't know me well. I was looking for direction as to where to find somewhat of an idea of the priorities of each institution (ambitious, laid back, etc) like a book or magazine that might succinctly categorize things, just to use as a jumping off point.

You have given me advice and I will take it. Sorry for clogging the boards.

Apologies are not necessary.

Unfortunately, what you are looking for (a book or centralized list) just doesn't exist for general surgery. It can be overwhelming with over 150 programs but you've already done a good job of offering some filters:

- location
- fellowship placement
- academic
- pleasant environment (absolutely the most difficult factor to assess)

So, use FREIDA and run a filter file for programs located in geographic areas that you might be interested in, leave out community type programs except those who have a track record of fellowship placement (especially for something competitive like surg onc), etc.

Since there isn't a centralized list, ranking or discussion of objective program evals, you have to do what the rest of us did: talk to senior students, residents, faculty, Google, etc. For some reason, most of us end up at a program that gives us what we need.

There is no reason why SDN can't be like Uncle Harvey, or Ortho Match except that we don't have the volume of members to support such a project and our inherent crankiness tends to get in the way.

 

[beaverfetus]

t and our inherent crankiness tends to get in the way.

totally. The member issue is a bit paradoxical because you'd think there would be more general surgery applicants out there. Maybe the Neuros and Orhtos are just naturally more neurotic, and liable to spend half their time exercising their hysteria online

 

[Winged Scapula]

totally. The member issue is a bit paradoxical because you'd think there would be more general surgery applicants out there. Maybe the Neuros and Orhtos are just naturally more neurotic, and liable to spend half their time exercising their hysteria online

There are more GS applicants than for Neurosurgery, not sure about Ortho.

However, UncleHarvey and Orthogate have been around a long time and I think SDN generally has a reputation of being for pre-meds, so I'm not sure senior medical students who hadn't heard about us before would come looking here, or that their advisors would recommend coming to SDN over those two sites.

Or it could be as you note, that GS students are either busier or less likely to be looking for help from others, less neurotic. I suspect it may also be that SDN members are MORE neurotic and therefore, worried about being exposed if they complain about their program. We already know the ABS monitors this forum, and I'm sure some programs do (having known more than 1 SDN surgery resident get in trouble with his/her program for what they've written here). So perhaps members here are simply less likely to discuss programs, warts and all, for fear of retribution whereas that's not the case with the other two sites.

An option would be to have a Closed subforum here where members could post about programs, warts and all, but membership/ability to view the forum would have to be verified by me/SDN staff using some sort of vetting process, usually with a real, searchable name and/or .edu email address, not allowing PDs and faculty members to join. If that's something that users want, it is easy to set up.

 

[45408]

Here's what I did - I logged into FRIEDA and picked all the states I was willing to go to (I wanted to stay in the midwest), and got back a big list of programs. I narrowed it down a bit by excluding programs that weren't what I wanted (7 year programs, programs in highly undesirable locations), and then I went to a surgeon I had worked with closely for a month. He had done his residency in the midwest and a fellowship at the Cleveland Clinic, so he was familiar with a number of regional programs and which ones had good reputations. He had a snippet to say about nearly every place on my list, which was usually enough for me to apply or cross them off my list.

A lot of programs also list quite a bit of information on their website, such as where their current graduates are now (including the fellowship training they got). If you want surg onc, I'd look at that.

Also, go to this site - https://home.absurgery.org/xfer/fyp2009summary.pdf - and find out which programs have good pass rates for the boards. The difference between an 85-95% pass rate can be pretty small in a program that takes 5 people/year, but I definitely want to know if the pass rate is more like 65%!

 

[Dr.LeoSpaceman]

Here's what I did - I logged into FRIEDA and picked all the states I was willing to go to (I wanted to stay in the midwest), and got back a big list of programs. I narrowed it down a bit by excluding programs that weren't what I wanted (7 year programs, programs in highly undesirable locations), and then I went to a surgeon I had worked with closely for a month. He had done his residency in the midwest and a fellowship at the Cleveland Clinic, so he was familiar with a number of regional programs and which ones had good reputations. He had a snippet to say about nearly every place on my list, which was usually enough for me to apply or cross them off my list.

A lot of programs also list quite a bit of information on their website, such as where their current graduates are now (including the fellowship training they got). If you want surg onc, I'd look at that.

Also, go to this site - https://home.absurgery.org/xfer/fyp2009summary.pdf - and find out which programs have good pass rates for the boards. The difference between an 85-95% pass rate can be pretty small in a program that takes 5 people/year, but I definitely want to know if the pass rate is more like 65%!

I'd say this is the most important thing. Identify residents and faculty who will discuss the process with you candidly (and who know the geographic are you want to end up in). That was one of the issues I ran into. Coming from the east coast, the vast majority of attendings/residents were knowledgeable about east coast programs, but had limited information on the Midwest.

 

[Timmythemic22]

Thank you all, guys.

I'm making an appointment with one of the residency advisors tomorrow to talk. I'm going to go through the FRIEDA list over the next few days. I'm going to talk to residents I'm friendly with, and just try to do it the old-fashioned way.

Thank you for putting up with MY neuroses.

 

[BlondeDocteur]

And remember too that nearly everyone has a "dog in the fight." If they went to a community program, they might make a big deal out of emphasizing community programs are the bee's knees and resent you if you're applying academic-only. Conversely advisors might just give you a list of "top-tier" programs or some arbitrary ranking according to perceived objective prestige and not really take your personal preferences or goals into account. And their advice might well be out of date-- if they're an attending surgeon they necessarily must have applied to residency 5+ years ago.

 

[Green Grass]

And remember too that nearly everyone has a "dog in the fight." If they went to a community program, they might make a big deal out of emphasizing community programs are the bee's knees and resent you if you're applying academic-only. Conversely advisors might just give you a list of "top-tier" programs or some arbitrary ranking according to perceived objective prestige and not really take your personal preferences or goals into account. And their advice might well be out of date-- if they're an attending surgeon they necessarily must have applied to residency 5+ years ago.

And now we're all confused again...

 

[freshoffboat]

And remember too that nearly everyone has a "dog in the fight." If they went to a community program, they might make a big deal out of emphasizing community programs are the bee's knees and resent you if you're applying academic-only. Conversely advisors might just give you a list of "top-tier" programs or some arbitrary ranking according to perceived objective prestige and not really take your personal preferences or goals into account. And their advice might well be out of date-- if they're an attending surgeon they necessarily must have applied to residency 5+ years ago.

There is some truth to this. To overcome these biases, might I suggest talking to a number of attendings, especially if they trained in diverse geographic locations and had varied experiences. Also, seek out residents (don't have to be surgery residents necessarily) at your institution that went to other medical schools and ask their opinions. I got some of my best information from a IM resident who went to med school at a program I am very keen on.

Also, with all this talk of friendliness and low malignancy being desirable for applicants, realize that most traditionally "hierarchical" or "malignant" programs are moving away from that ethos, just because you cannot compete for the best applicants if you continue to beat them to the ground once they get there (or keep up that perception). In short: don't be dissuaded from applying to programs that might be clinically strong and geographically appealing just because you've heard that they're malignant- truth trails rumor in the surgical world by at least 5 years, and you might be pleasantly surprised!

 

[45408]

And now we're all confused again...

It doesn't mean they can't give you good information on both types. My mentor is an academic guy who spent time at some of the top surgery programs in the country, and he's got an active research career now, and he told me lots of good things about a number of community programs. Hopefully, they'll admit they don't know as much about a specific program rather than just badmouthing an entire cateogry.

Timmy - you could always come back to this thread with specific names of programs that you've preliminarily selected and ask for specific feedback. The surgery interns at your program have also just recently matched. You could also look at your school's match list and see where people go.

 

[Timmythemic22]

It doesn't mean they can't give you good information on both types. My mentor is an academic guy who spent time at some of the top surgery programs in the country, and he's got an active research career now, and he told me lots of good things about a number of community programs. Hopefully, they'll admit they don't know as much about a specific program rather than just badmouthing an entire cateogry.

Timmy - you could always come back to this thread with specific names of programs that you've preliminarily selected and ask for specific feedback. The surgery interns at your program have also just recently matched. You could also look at your school's match list and see where people go.

Meeting with the adviser went so well today. Feel much more calm and a bit more sane. I seem to at least be competitive for programs that I've showed interest in previously. So, as per Prowler (you rock, my friend) I'm going to shoot off a couple of programs right now. Mind you, I've been advised to apply to 30-40 programs. Anyways, here we go (in no particular order) :

-Georgetown (got my masters there, love the area)
-Dartmouth (always had a soft spot for the place)
-NYU (historically my school places lots of students there for GS)
-Jefferson (has a great rep as progressive teaching and relatively friendly)
-U of VT
-Brown
-SUNYs (not sure which one)
-Columbia
-U Conn

this is just to start, getting a bit of feedback...thanks all

 

[thedrjojo]

If you like the NYU feel but don't necessarily want NYC, UMDNJ-NJMS is like it (Public, Private, VA... lots of autonomy especially as a chief, perhaps a reputation of malignancy but actually not a bad place to be at, if you can stand Newark). They don't have as good of placement for Surg-Onc as NYU, but they have put DO's/FMG's into Surg-Onc, so they should be able to places AMG's (one of the now Onc attendings was AMG/Resident who went to City of Hope for Onc and then came back). If Surg-Onc is really your thing, Cornell is affiliated with Memorial Sloan Kettering, and has much better placement in SurgOnc than Columbia does... it just doesn't seem quite as friendly as a place. You might also want to look into UMDNJ-RWJ, which has a Cancer Center and has done decently in Surg Onc placement. As far as the SUNY's... I only interviewed at 1, SUNY-Downstate, and it made its way to the bottom of my rank list. No Surg Onc department to speak of, little in the way of Onc, not very cohesive program... too spread out, problems with numbers, seemed a bit hierachial.

 

[Timmythemic22]

If you like the NYU feel but don't necessarily want NYC, UMDNJ-NJMS is like it (Public, Private, VA... lots of autonomy especially as a chief, perhaps a reputation of malignancy but actually not a bad place to be at, if you can stand Newark). They don't have as good of placement for Surg-Onc as NYU, but they have put DO's/FMG's into Surg-Onc, so they should be able to places AMG's (one of the now Onc attendings was AMG/Resident who went to City of Hope for Onc and then came back). If Surg-Onc is really your thing, Cornell is affiliated with Memorial Sloan Kettering, and has much better placement in SurgOnc than Columbia does... it just doesn't seem quite as friendly as a place. You might also want to look into UMDNJ-RWJ, which has a Cancer Center and has done decently in Surg Onc placement. As far as the SUNY's... I only interviewed at 1, SUNY-Downstate, and it made its way to the bottom of my rank list. No Surg Onc department to speak of, little in the way of Onc, not very cohesive program... too spread out, problems with numbers, seemed a bit hierachial.

Well, you're actually talking to a NJMS student. NYU is a def. What didn't you like about SUNY downstate (msg me if you need to). How do you feel about Columbia?