- Joined
- Dec 14, 2013
- Messages
- 53
- Reaction score
- 10
Last edited:
Taking a gap year?
- Thread starter kamikaze1992
- Start date
eyeeye_captain
All pirate, no patch
- Joined
- Dec 22, 2022
- Messages
- 189
- Reaction score
- 382
At this point, go into whichever field you can reasonably match into without more research. At some point you have to start residency unless you plan to be very research heavy, and it looks like your output hasn’t been very strong so far (which can be for reasons out of your hands). Sometimes you just have to get out of school.
It doesn’t help that your clinical grades are average. If you get some nice letters with people going to bat for you, there’s a chance. If you get interviews and are a normal human being, there’s a chance. I’m not loving your ophtho odds based on what you’ve written, especially with limited exposure.
Gas also has way more residency spots than us yearly.
It doesn’t help that your clinical grades are average. If you get some nice letters with people going to bat for you, there’s a chance. If you get interviews and are a normal human being, there’s a chance. I’m not loving your ophtho odds based on what you’ve written, especially with limited exposure.
Gas also has way more residency spots than us yearly.
- Joined
- Dec 29, 2016
- Messages
- 34
- Reaction score
- 29
I would err on the side of taking a research year and maximizing your application. The top ten med school, MD/PhD, and department support are all with you but I think you just need a research year - if you really want ophtho.
Gas you'll match into without any problems.
Gas you'll match into without any problems.
- Joined
- Feb 8, 2020
- Messages
- 36
- Reaction score
- 9
Ophthalmology is a small world. If you have a good step 2 score which will get you into the door (interviews), excellent recommendation letters will carry you far.
Ophthalmology has a possibility of being your own boss. Anesthesiology does not unless you have a pain clinic, which is really dull in my opinion.
I did not have the support of my medical school department. I think the chair had mental illness, severe depression, and no longer practices medicine. The program director was nasty, wouldn't even let me do a 4th year elective until after application deadlines. I had to resort to stellar recommendations but from a no-name guy in private practice (volunteer faculty), a pediatrics faculty (not peds ophtho), and a general surgery faculty. I managed to get a decent residency (building, facilities, surgical volume, decent number of faculty in every subspecialty, not just one in a subspecialty) albeit not a hugely famous one.
A gap year tends to look bad. It makes you look like a loser who couldn't match into anything, even if that didn't happen. Only the most spectacular gap year will be persuasive that the applicant is not a loser.
I did not have the support of my medical school department. I think the chair had mental illness, severe depression, and no longer practices medicine. The program director was nasty, wouldn't even let me do a 4th year elective until after application deadlines. I had to resort to stellar recommendations but from a no-name guy in private practice (volunteer faculty), a pediatrics faculty (not peds ophtho), and a general surgery faculty. I managed to get a decent residency (building, facilities, surgical volume, decent number of faculty in every subspecialty, not just one in a subspecialty) albeit not a hugely famous one.
A gap year tends to look bad. It makes you look like a loser who couldn't match into anything, even if that didn't happen. Only the most spectacular gap year will be persuasive that the applicant is not a loser.
Last edited:
