Should I give up? Take a research year?

[NoMoreFishes]

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Will only have 3 honors in (OBGYN, Psych, and FM). The rest are high pass.

Research estimate by the time ERAS opens: 2-3 basic science publications (not ENT related, done in medical school. One of which is co-first author). 2-3 non-research ENT publications (like short ENT articles). Possibly 2-3 chart reviews/abstracts (not ENT related). Bunch of poster presentations. If I'm lucky, I'll be able to squeeze in a true ENT research paper/abstract. It's been hard doing any research with the ENT department at my school unfortunately.

My grades aren't the best. I've been very unlucky M3 so far. Missed surgery shelf cutoff by 2 points.

My best odds would be matching at my institution at this point, since they already know me somewhat. Should I give up? Or will somehow getting a 260+ on step 2 save me? Is the move taking a research year even after a 260+ Step 2 between M3 and M4?

Would really appreciate some help guys. I think I should be having a meeting with career advisor in the next few months but I just feel a little lost at the moment.

 

[operaman]

How much does your department love you? That’s really going to be the biggest factor here, along with how well known your department is and how well your step 2 goes.

You still have a lot of time before eras opens, but you need to kill it with getting some papers going. Reach out to contacts and go talk about your situation. I’ve seen people get 5-6 ent pubs between now and eras time, though obviously some of those will still be in submission/under review at that point, but they’ll still show up and look good.

Shoot now with chatGPT it should be even easier! Talk to faculty, residents - see if there are any unfinished projects lingering that you could help move forward. Residents in my program had tons of posters and orals just sitting around because we were too busy/lazy to write up a manuscript and deal with it. I had lots of students get pubs just by taking our slides and writing up a draft manuscript. Those are easy things you could do in a weekend before ChatGPT, maybe faster now.

If dept likes you and step 2 goes well, you still have a shot so wouldn’t bail for research year just yet. If you don’t match though, a research year would be a wise move rather than a prelim year since that would give you a nice boost where you need it.