Tips to be competitive

[thecloverdoc]

Good afternoon,

I am an incoming DO student that will start in Fall 2021. While I am still waiting on some interviews, it is likely that I will attend CUSOM where I was accepted recently.

I understand from the millions of threads mentioning this, is that DO students typically face an uphill battle to the more competitive residencies, specialties and programs. While it is more difficult, many still are able to achieve this. I am currently still undecided on what I am interested in, but most likely something interventional/procedural. My goals are to attend some academic institution or urban hospital for training.

Can anyone give insight as to how I should approach my next four years apart from distinguished grades and high USMLE/COMLEX?
I plan to do research throughout the four years off site at my current institution regarding neurology. I was also thinking about doing research near my medical school (e.g. hospitals in the area).

Please let me know how I can have the best chances. Thank you

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[TrackManDan]

First year DO student here! From people that I have talked to, and also advice on here, some of the best things to do is get involved in leadership opportunities (Student gov., clubs, etc), research, and securing strong LORs. With Step/Level 1 going P/F, grades are the only distinguishing factor at play for your first two years until you get into rotations. And even then, grades aren't that high on PD's list of important factors. I've also have heard doing research in a field you might be applying to helps. So if ortho is your thing, don't come with a bunch of neuro pubs. Most people will say do well in all of your rotations, build strong connections with residents/fellows and attendings, and be strong academically.

 

[RapidEyeMovementLearning]

Preclinical grades will mean squat because of how variably exams are written among schools. Some use NBOME, others have crap in-house exams full of minutiae, poorly written questions, etc. Clinical grades and evaluations will carry more weight. And of course the step 2 exam. The best way to prep for step 2 is to have a good step 1 foundation even though that's PF now.

 

[_DeBakey_]

Pre-clinical grades will still not matter nearly as much as other parts of your app. Also leadership and clubs are a bunch of fluff that everyone can see straight through.

Study hard (still do as best as you can in class obviously), studying for boards with UFAPS will still build a strong clinical foundation for STEP 1 and more importantly for you, STEP 2. Get some research and connections in your field as well.

 

[healthcare3.0]

Following. I find this thread very interesting, considering I will be class of 2025. So in summary of what I am reading in this thread so far:
1. Study hard. For classes and building a strong foundation for step 1 and step 2.
2. Research and strong LORs are going to be more important.
3. Research should be relevant to desired field (does that mean we should have a target specialty pretty early?)
4. Pre-clinical grades will not hold as much weight as clinical grades/evaluations.

However, based off of this, how/when do we know if a certain specialty is within our reach? So lets take ortho for example. How/when would I know that ortho is within reach? Even if I'm doing amazing in pre-clinicals, would I have to wait until my step 2 score during 4th year to decide what is realistic? I apologize if I am missing something here.

 

[thecloverdoc]

Just wanted to chime in real quick to say thank you for all the replies.

 

[thecloverdoc]

The thread provided was perfect. I will refer to that for more answers. Thank you

 

[TrackManDan]

Following. I find this thread very interesting, considering I will be class of 2025. So in summary of what I am reading in this thread so far:
1. Study hard. For classes and building a strong foundation for step 1 and step 2.
2. Research and strong LORs are going to be more important.
3. Research should be relevant to desired field (does that mean we should have a target specialty pretty early?)
4. Pre-clinical grades will not hold as much weight as clinical grades/evaluations.

However, based off of this, how/when do we know if a certain specialty is within our reach? So lets take ortho for example. How/when would I know that ortho is within reach? Even if I'm doing amazing in pre-clinicals, would I have to wait until my step 2 score during 4th year to decide what is realistic? I apologize if I am missing something here.

So the reason why I said something that falls in line with point #3 is that from people that I have spoken with, they say the sooner the better in terms of gearing up an application for (insert competitive specialty here). This advice primarily applies to the uber-competitive fields (Derm, ENT, Neuro Surg, Ortho, Plastics, High tier IM, etc). However, if you want tops in any field, research is your best friend. And no, please don't apologize, you're not missing anything. I have had the same thought with how the first set of boards are P/F so you don't know how "in reach" you are. However, if there's something you're interested in even remotely, I would say a good start is to see if there's someone you can get connected with in order to see if maybe it'll be a good fit. If you have programs at your home institution, I would talk to the residents and faculty. If you're at a DO school like me, you may have to go outside your home institution to find research. You may even have time in 3rd year to get into some research. I'm just a first year so I can't speak to everything, but one thing i've done is reach out to my school and asked if they can connect me to an alum who would be willing to give insight on how they built an app that allowed them to match into their field.

 

[djiboutiman]

Whatever you do, make sure you pass your classes first. Sure, pre-clinical GPA might not be a huge factor for residency. But it's hard to come back from failing a class. Once you get a good routine down, start networking and trying to lockdown research. I'm not familiar with how much research CUSOM and the surrounding hospitals have. If you have trouble finding something, check Careers in Medicine which has a list of research and clinical opportunities.

 

[FalconSlice]

Do what you like, and like what you do

 

[Lawpy]

Board scores, research, and connections seem to be the highest yield.

How does a DO student get 15+ papers in major journals? Like that's something seen in top MD schools given their massive research infrastructure! @AnatomyGrey12

 

[AnatomyGrey12]

How does a DO student get 15+ papers in major journals? Like that's something seen in top MD schools given their massive research infrastructure! @AnatomyGrey12

One DO applicant's experience applying to orthopaedic surgery (still helpful for other competitive stuff)

I applied and matched orthopaedic surgery, but I think info like this can be helpful to other competitive stuff. I promised a write up in the match thread, and here is my attempt to provide information I think is valuable. Stuff said here is mostly just my opinion and what I noticed from my...

forums.studentdoctor.net

this isn’t the only person walking around with 10+ pubs as a DO student.

 

[healthcare3.0]

So the reason why I said something that falls in line with point #3 is that from people that I have spoken with, they say the sooner the better in terms of gearing up an application for (insert competitive specialty here). This advice primarily applies to the uber-competitive fields (Derm, ENT, Neuro Surg, Ortho, Plastics, High tier IM, etc). However, if you want tops in any field, research is your best friend. And no, please don't apologize, you're not missing anything. I have had the same thought with how the first set of boards are P/F so you don't know how "in reach" you are. However, if there's something you're interested in even remotely, I would say a good start is to see if there's someone you can get connected with in order to see if maybe it'll be a good fit. If you have programs at your home institution, I would talk to the residents and faculty. If you're at a DO school like me, you may have to go outside your home institution to find research. You may even have time in 3rd year to get into some research. I'm just a first year so I can't speak to everything, but one thing i've done is reach out to my school and asked if they can connect me to an alum who would be willing to give insight on how they built an app that allowed them to match into their field.

Thank you! I see what you're saying. I also think it will be interesting to see what the match data looks like starting 2023 and beyond.

 

[Lawpy]

One DO applicant's experience applying to orthopaedic surgery (still helpful for other competitive stuff)

I applied and matched orthopaedic surgery, but I think info like this can be helpful to other competitive stuff. I promised a write up in the match thread, and here is my attempt to provide information I think is valuable. Stuff said here is mostly just my opinion and what I noticed from my...

forums.studentdoctor.net

this isn’t the only person walking around with 10+ pubs as a DO student.

So it's surgery research spamming + finding the rare guys in DO schools that can help churn out that many papers

 

[Lawpy]

There's something about surgery research where pumping out dozens of papers is so easy and efficient

 

[AnatomyGrey12]

So it's surgery research spamming + finding the rare guys in DO schools that can help churn out that many papers

If you want to call multiple publications in the top impact factor journals in a specific field “surgery research spamming” then yeah sure.

The point was to highlight what a truly elite applicant looks like.

 

[Lawpy]

If you want to call multiple publications in the top impact factor journals in a specific field “surgery research spamming” then yeah sure.

The point was to highlight what a truly elite applicant looks like.

I mean it's common in surgical subs right? The large volume is mind boggling because peer review is a hard process and lots of papers get rejected. It's hard to imagine literal dozens of papers at a med student level unless peer review for a field was loosened in some way to make it much faster and more efficient.

 

[AnatomyGrey12]

I mean it's common in surgical subs right? The large volume is mind boggling because peer review is a hard process and lots of papers get rejected. It's hard to imagine literal dozens of papers at a med student level unless peer review for a field was loosened in some way to make it much faster and more efficient.

Common? No..... not for actual publications... abstracts and posters yeah that’s more common.

It’s not field specific... maybe I could see that point of it was one specific field, but when the spectrum ranges from JAMA IM to JBJS it isn’t the peer review process being looser.

 

[Lawpy]

Common? No..... not for actual publications... abstracts and posters yeah that’s more common.

It’s not field specific... maybe I could see that point of it was one specific field, but when the spectrum ranges from JAMA IM to JBJS it isn’t the peer review process being looser.

The thing is i can see why dozens of surgery papers can happen even though that's bizarrely unusual in med student level because surgery attendings really like to share all the cool things they do on top of a massively huge database they have. So for surgery attendings, churning out ~100 papers / year can be pretty regular. Combine that with strong knowledge in stats or cool things like machine learning or engineering stuff, a med student can rack up dozens of high impact papers at top journals

Now that i agree is elite, and that's the sort of sense i'm getting from your description. It's just astounding to see at a DO level because these things are seen at top tier MD schools that have massive research infrastructures.

It's field specific because i don't see anywhere close to this sheer volume even in IM unless we're talking something niche in heme/onc or interventional cards... again at top places with strong hospitals

Idk man i know i'm rambling a bit here. But when stepping back and thinking about sheer dozens of peer reviewed papers at a med student level, it's insane. And even more shocking at DO schools

 

[JazzStudies]

Don't mind me, just checking out the pro-tips on this thread!

 

[thecloverdoc]

Thank you everyone for the tips. I believe my first goal will be to roughly decide on a specialty (surgery vs medicine), and start cold-calling surrounding hospital doctors for opportunities to work together for research. Seems like this will be the best next step to securing a chance. Hopefully I can squeeze into a good program, then work from there.

See you all in four years

 

[Angus Avagadro]

Lots of good advice here. Obviously if you are in the top 10% class rank, it's helpful. Bottom quartile, not helpful. Try to be in top half if possible. Also, do not discount auditions and clinicals. Show up early, stay late, offer to help in any way. Make them chase you out of the hospital with a stick. And for God's sake, stay off of your phone during reports, lectures or rounds. My son constantly complains about this. You will appear disinterested and entitled. LORs from Faculty or the Dept Chief are very helpful. Research is a must for competetive programs. Play the match game well. Apply broadly, with a couple reach and a couple back up programs. Apply mostly to programs you feel competitive. Don't neglect university affiliate programs, some are excellent. Ours has an excellent Surgery and CT surgery programs. One of my students is a CT fellow there. You have a long way to go yet OP and the rules can change in 3 years. Good luck and best wishes!

 

[thecloverdoc]

Advice acknowledged doctor, I will take it to heart. Thank you for the help. I wish everyone a bright future!