Stupid residency question...does it matter?

[docscience]

I am pretty sure I want to do internal med (though I am just an M2...still keeping my mind open though).

Does it matter where I do my residency? Obviously bigger academic centers will offer more cases with more variety. So overall it may be a better learning environment.

But as far as fellowship criteria....does it matter where you did your residency in order to be competitive for a fellowship? I am guessing it does...
What else do they consider when you apply for a fellowship? Research interests? (I was thinking perhaps I might want to later do cardiology/critical care medicine).

As far as job opportunities go? Does it matter where one does their residency? Would a private practice/hospital center choose a resident who did their residency at UCSF rather than one who did his/her residency at U of Arizona? or U of West Viriginia?

Thanks for the help on naive questions.

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[Llenroc]

For most residencies, and for Internal Medicine in particular, there's a huge distinction between the community programs and the university programs. This distinction matters because if you're thinking about pursuing a fellowship afterwards, your chances of getting one are much better if you go to a university program.

For private practice, no one cares that much where you did your residency at.

 

[docscience]

Another follow up naive question:

What is the difference between avg. Step 1 scores for university programs vs. community programs???

 

[NotAProgDirector]

Another follow up naive question:

What is the difference between avg. Step 1 scores for university programs vs. community programs???

It's not published.

Some community programs take International grads only, who may have very high scores, so it's not necessarily lower for community programs.

 

[DarthNeurology]

I am pretty sure I want to do internal med (though I am just an M2...still keeping my mind open though).

Does it matter where I do my residency? Obviously bigger academic centers will offer more cases with more variety. So overall it may be a better learning environment.

But as far as fellowship criteria....does it matter where you did your residency in order to be competitive for a fellowship? I am guessing it does...
What else do they consider when you apply for a fellowship? Research interests? (I was thinking perhaps I might want to later do cardiology/critical care medicine).

As far as job opportunities go? Does it matter where one does their residency? Would a private practice/hospital center choose a resident who did their residency at UCSF rather than one who did his/her residency at U of Arizona? or U of West Viriginia?

Thanks for the help on naive questions.

Prestige matters a great deal in internal medicine if you want to climb the ladder to a top fellowship or do academics. I am always amazed that the chairman posts are frequently held by people who went to top IM programs such as Harvard, Washington U. If you do IM at say UCSF, it is something that will always impress people for decades later.

Some chairman/women do come from other university academic programs, but not as many. Going to say MGH for internal medicine you would make friends with fellow residents who will presumably go on to high posts in academia as well.

In terms of fellowships I would say that it helps big time going to as high powered a program as you can as fellowships like cardiology and GI are only bound to get more competitive in the future. If you are interested in cardiology then see if there are a lot of residents in your program of interst who got into cardiology. But be careful, some IM programs may have a lot of residents who wanted cardiology but couldn't get it.

I.e University of Arizona may have some cardiology fellows, but maybe only 4/10 got in cardiology. Also, University of Arizona has a lot of FMGs which may make the program seem less attractive to fellowship directors (there were something like 8 FMGs all from Jordan starting internship this year there! I wouldn't say there is anything necessarily wrong about that, but there is prejudice against programs with large percentages of IMG/FMGs sadly). Very interesting as I believe University of Arizona has a medical school (D.O.???) yet almost none of its graduates choose to matriculate at the IM program, whereas at Harvard of course many of its students want/and sought by Harvard affiliates like MGM to matriculate as interns in their IM program. So again, be careful to do some research.

Now a place like MGH may have ALL of its residents who want cardiology match not only into cardiology but also into top cardiology fellowships.

I would guess that for hospital CEO/ chairman of department posts it matters even more who you know and less what you know. So yes, a person who completed their residency at UCSF would very much have a leg up from somebody who completed their residency at a lower tier program like University of Arizona. After all, it makes the hospital look good and more able to recruit potential attendings if the head of Cardiology did their residency at Hopkins.

 

[docscience]

Prestige matters a great deal in internal medicine if you want to climb the ladder to a top fellowship or do academics. I am always amazed that the chairman posts are frequently held by people who went to top IM programs such as Harvard, Washington U. If you do IM at say UCSF, it is something that will always impress people for decades later.

Some chairman/women do come from other university academic programs, but not as many. Going to say MGH for internal medicine you would make friends with fellow residents who will presumably go on to high posts in academia as well.

In terms of fellowships I would say that it helps big time going to as high powered a program as you can as fellowships like cardiology and GI are only bound to get more competitive in the future. If you are interested in cardiology then see if there are a lot of residents in your program of interst who got into cardiology. But be careful, some IM programs may have a lot of residents who wanted cardiology but couldn't get it.

I.e University of Arizona may have some cardiology fellows, but maybe only 4/10 got in cardiology. Also, University of Arizona has a lot of FMGs which may make the program seem less attractive to fellowship directors (there were something like 8 FMGs all from Jordan starting internship this year there! I wouldn't say there is anything necessarily wrong about that, but there is prejudice against programs with large percentages of IMG/FMGs sadly). Very interesting as I believe University of Arizona has a medical school (D.O.???) yet almost none of its graduates choose to matriculate at the IM program, whereas at Harvard of course many of its students want/and sought by Harvard affiliates like MGM to matriculate as interns in their IM program. So again, be careful to do some research.

Now a place like MGH may have ALL of its residents who want cardiology match not only into cardiology but also into top cardiology fellowships.

I would guess that for hospital CEO/ chairman of department posts it matters even more who you know and less what you know. So yes, a person who completed their residency at UCSF would very much have a leg up from somebody who completed their residency at a lower tier program like University of Arizona. After all, it makes the hospital look good and more able to recruit potential attendings if the head of Cardiology did their residency at Hopkins.

Wow! Thanks for the perspective! So just curious to how competitive an internal medicine residency at a fairly powerful program is. I am about 80/148 rank at school. I hope to do well on Step 1...ready to step on the gas when I need to. I will have a few first and second author publications. Thanks again.

 

[dragonfly99]

Darth pretty much gets it right in his comments above.
I do think he (or she?) overstated a little the importance of going to a super big name program (i.e. there are more programs than just Harvard and UCSF that have high cardiology and GI fellowship placement rates). However, I wouldn't go to some no-name medicine program if you want to do a competitive fellowship like GI or cards, or even hem/onc. You'd just be shooting yourself in the foot.

I'm not sure class rank means much in medicine residency selection...although if you rank low and it's blatantly stated in your Dean's letter then it probably would hurt you soon. A good Step 1 (and potentially Step 2) score would help significantly, as would a good performance in the 3rd year medicine clerkship and medicine subI.