That's the info I've been told. I guess I'm not sure how I know whether a place would be somewhere I would want to intern at. Just look on VIRMP and see their match rates, etc?What about academic facilities? My school doesn't have a neurologist and that's something I am very interested in. My parent's dog sees an IM vet and I was thinking of emailing them to see if I can shadow. I'm also going to be part of IM club board next year so that should be good. This summer I am spending part of it doing One Health research in Costa Rica so not super applicable but it has been very fun thus far 🙂
I'm lucky in that everyone at my school does a rotation at OHS where we do a minimum of 30 surgeries or something like that. Our school allows a lot more surgery experience than others. There's also a busy ER clinic in Portland I was thinking of trying to do a rotation at. Philly also has a rotation at the national greyhound adoption agency (mostly doing dentals and surgery) which I would love to do!
How do people pay for all of these things?! More loans? A job? I'm currently applying to a job in SA rehab
In terms of choosing where you want to visit/extern, consider all the factors. Cost of living with the salary (which may change by the time you get around to applying), how much time you spend on ER, how many specialists are available, caseload, etc. Check to see if there are any intern surveys for these places posted on VIRMP as well. Don't forget that you can always email extern coordinators and ask if they can provide more information pertinent to whatever specialty you're interested in. If a program sounds like something you'd be willing to dedicate your life to for a year, apply for an externship and
talk to the current interns while you're there. It's also worth considering that at least for Bluepearls, they have a tendency to keep on their interns for either jobs or specialty internships/residencies. That can be an advantage, although that's not something they necessarily advertise. It's a lot of work, but start a spreadsheet now. If you want to match, you have to heavily research everything and apply smart. Pretty similar to choosing which vet schools to apply to.
You can also ask for a list of current interns and their contact info, and send out emails asking about the programs. If a program is unwilling to share contact info, that's generally considered a red flag.
In terms of match rates...if you have spare time, you can see which programs are still unmatched and for how many positions (compare the original posting to the unmatched positions posting to see how many total spots vs. how many are still open). If an internship has all spots still available, or most of them, I'd consider avoiding it. While some places just aren't popular and therefore don't have multiple apps per seat and never fill, many have bad reps and having multiple seats unfilled
can be a red flag, especially year after year. Sometimes open seats are just an artifact of the match and the way ranking works, but there are plenty of unmatched applicants every year and having a lot of open seats past the scramble in general isn't a super great sign. There are also more seats than applicants every year, so consider that. You'll get to know which programs have good reps (especially as you talk to clinicians come 4th year), and these programs rarely, if ever, have an empty seat after the match. For the current match info, it's a little late and idk if the unmatched listings are still accurate. I don't know that VIRMP actively updates that list this far out. Just keep in mind this isn't totally reliable as there are so many factors that go into matching, but if there's a year after year trend it's worth considering.
Also, just because one hospital has a good rep does not mean another hospital under the same corporation is equally as good. I chose to move across the country to one Bluepearl over the one driving distance from my husband's house, because the latter had such a crappy program and reputation (coincidentally, they have not had a full intern class in the last 3 years).