Residency application advice

[dugudwn23]

Hello a DO student here. My stats are:
Comlex and step 1 pass on first attempt
level 2: 532
Step 2: 237
class rank: 19:210
no research and volunteer while at school.
I want to apply to IM and I know I can’t go for top 50 programs but want an advice for which mid or low-tier academic or even good community programs I can shoot for?

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[pigsinacloth]

Do you have a location preference? IDK much about IM stuff, but I think the midwest is generally good for DOs and they have a bunch of pretty decent community programs that can set you up for fellowship if that's what you're interested in.

Also just my 2 cents, but if you are almost certain you don't want to do a fellowship, just match somewhere where you think you will be happy. Residency is difficult. You don't want to add any extra misery if you don't have to.

 

[dugudwn23]

Do you have a location preference? IDK much about IM stuff, but I think the midwest is generally good for DOs and they have a bunch of pretty decent community programs that can set you up for fellowship if that's what you're interested in.

Also just my 2 cents, but if you are almost certain you don't want to do a fellowship, just match somewhere where you think you will be happy. Residency is difficult. You don't want to add any extra misery if you don't have to.

Thanks for the reply! I am in Midwest already, and I love it here. I also want to go into GI fellowship in the future to follow my mentor’s footsteps but I have no idea how to look for a “good” residency with my stats that can set me up for a fellowship. Location, quality of life/program is my top priority.

 

[thumbz]

If you're set on GI you're gonna want to match academic and somewhere with an in-house GI fellowship. Midwest, northwest are probs gonna be your highest yield. How are your clinical grades/eval comments? How much wards based IM did you do? Those are gonna be make or break for your application - you shouldn't get auto screened most places with your Step 2 so your app will get a pair of eyes on it. I'd just apply broad and do some safety interviews to toss on your rank list. You may be surprised where you get interviews

Order of importance Rotation comments > grades > LOR (if memory serves I don't have the charting outcomes handy)

 

[dugudwn23]

My rotation evals have been great except for 1 surgery rotation where I was stuck with a malignant resident. Comment said that i improved throughout the rotation but i struggled with the concept of “adult learning” because i said it would be helpful if they took 10-20 seconds of their time to explain what they are doing/what we are looking for when doing procedures, etc. I honored in internal medicine, psych, ob/gyn. I got a letter of rec from 2 internal medicine doctors (one GI, one hospitalist at a community program where I did an elective at) and 1 from ortho surgeon. I was generally looking at community hospitals with an in-house gi fellowships because I want to stay in the state that I currently live in but reading your comment gives me a lot to think about. Do you have any recommendations which academic program I could apply to? I looked at u of Iowa or Oregon.

 

[pigsinacloth]

I think the lines get blurred sometimes when people talk about academic vs community. For example Advocate Christ in Chicago is considered a community program since it's technically not attached to a med school, and Connecticut children's is considered an affiliated hospital since they are not directly attached to the med school. Both match very well in many specialties for IM and peds as far as I am aware. So I know people talk about academic vs community, but I think you have to try and dig deeper than just what they are listed as. That's not super helpful, but I just wanted to make the point that the technical definitions of programs is not the end all be all, also rankings are not everything in my opinion and I think a lot of people fall into that trap, but I will get off my soapbox.

I think you should primarily focus on places with in house GI fellowships. I am in peds and want to do a peds fellowship, so basically everyone I have worked with has recommended I try to match somewhere that either has the fellowship, or has a some structure where they can set me up for as much exposure as possible to their department. People have told me LORs and research is what matters most for fellowship assuming you're an overall good resident regardless of what rotation you're on.

 

[thumbz]

^^ They raise a good point, when I think of academic these days I think of larger medical campuses that have in house fellowships, not necessarily being attached to a med school or a research powerhouse. So definitely look at larger community programs - what you want to avoid if you can is hospitals that only have one or two residency programs and no fellowships. They just won't have the same reputation among fellowship directors.

If you do interview at smaller places, ask about their fellowship match. At my shop we have a 100% fellowship match rate, but also have never had someone apply GI or Cards. So I would not recommend you train where I work for that reason.

Your evals are gonna be great for you getting interviews, don't worry about that surgery eval we all know who surgeons are.