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And you, as a preclinical 20-something kid, have the experience to say so.
Too late to switch to derm in 3rd year?
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And you, as a preclinical 20-something kid, have the experience to say so.
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You might be surprised. Practicing medicine as a resident and even more so as an attending is SUCH a different world (haven't been an attending myself, but I've learned to accept and believe what those above me have told me after all these years of training). Shadowing and rotations just can't give you the same sense of what it's actually like.
We all (or hopefully most) really want to do what's best for patients. I'd LOVE to sit with each patient for half an hour and explain why they have the disease they have, and what the medications do, and how they affect the body. It's just really hard to do that when you have practice managers and patients in the waiting room breathing down your neck to go faster.
It's all too easy to get caught up in that and forget to spend the time. It's too difficult to spend the time and get everything done. We all have families to raise, houses to pay for, and loans to pay off. We have to see the patents to do that...it's just how medicine in practice works.
Stressed out people trying to work quickly don't come off as the most pleasant people unfortunately. Surgeons are what we all hear as a typical example of this (not trying to generalize, but surgeons do work their butts off in general). It's just how it is. I don't know how else to explain it. I'm not condoning it, but it's just....how it ends up being. It's called medicine in the year 2013. When your medicare reimbursements get cut by 30% are you going to just sit there and take the pay cut?..."Sorry my dear daughter, but you have to go to the state school instead of Yale because we just can't afford it now". (No offense to anyone who went to a state school...I did too). I know many others have it way worse than physicians, but we didn't work all those years for that sort of thing to happen to us.
People don't accept that, they see more pts and work harder to try to maintain some semblance of their pay and lifestyle. Unfortunately working faster often results in what I described above. Throw economics in the mix and that is what happens. It's not just Derm, it's most all fields of medicine.
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I'll be honest, one of the things I love about Derm is the great personalities in the field. Almost invariably, Derm residents/attendings are the most laid back, friendly, enjoyable people with whom to work.
Which is one of the reasons it's so cringeworthy watching JP2740 try so gosh darn hard to paint such a vividly different picture of Dermatologists, one of conceited, checked-out imbeciles. Nothing could be further from the truth.
When I first started interviewing, I had this strange fear that Derm would be filled with a bunch of try-hards who were insufferable to talk to. Nothing could be further from the truth, much to my surprise. Maybe those folks go into ENT?
I (but perhaps more importantly, the entire Derm community) greatly thank(s) JP2740 for abstaining from the field, whether voluntary or otherwise.
Which is one of the reasons it's so cringeworthy watching JP2740 try so gosh darn hard to paint such a vividly different picture of Dermatologists, one of conceited, checked-out imbeciles. Nothing could be further from the truth.
When I first started interviewing, I had this strange fear that Derm would be filled with a bunch of try-hards who were insufferable to talk to. Nothing could be further from the truth, much to my surprise. Maybe those folks go into ENT?
I (but perhaps more importantly, the entire Derm community) greatly thank(s) JP2740 for abstaining from the field, whether voluntary or otherwise.
Agreed. It's understandable a person forms an opinion or perception of things based on his or her own experiences, but even so JP2740's picture of derm couldn't be further from the truth. But I will stop right here and no longer pursue this matter for the sake of precious time. To JP2740: I would actually wait till the middle of your 3rd year to make any statement about whether you would go into derm or not. You never know..it might turn out "can't" instead of "don't want to".
Btw most derm, ENT or plastic people I've worked with are extremely hard-working and yet some of the nicest out there. On the other hand, I've met some grumpy FM and Peds peeps.
I think this thread has been derailed long enough, and going back to the OP's question again, your stats are stellar period and you still have a great chance of matching if you work on the following areas:
1. Research: You need some publications in derm. A case report would be an easy way to do so. Try to get at least 1-2 done before the application cycle starts. Also you can also take on research projects now so that you can at least list them on ERAS.)
2. Step 2CK: The consensus is if you rock your Step I, you delay taking Step 2 as much as possible. But with your score, I'm sure you can easily get 260+ on 2CK so take it early. Take it seriously though.
3. Grades: Keep up the good work!
4. Networking: You'll need to get to know your school's derm dept ASAP. So meet with the chairman and residency director and what-not (if there is one).
5. Great LORs: Will naturally follow if you do #1 & 4 well enough.
6. Aways: Optional but can help if you're set on a certain prestigious program and got the personality to back you up
Best of luck.
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I have zero interest, maybe even negative interest, in derm but I agree with you. I have met five dermatologists and 1 derm resident and as a whole they struck me as laid back, nice people. They obviously do know their stuff of they wouldn't have scored high enough on step 1 to get into the field. Yes, they forget some minutiae but everyone does.
There are bad apples in every field...
Does it shock you that someone doesn't want to go into the field? I don't see how what you're saying is relevant in any way whatsoever. It's not.
You're confused here. It's always possible to not want to go into something and yet the person ends up not having good enough stats to match into that specialty anyway.
The pre-clinical grades alone don't say much about one's competitiveness though getting as many honors as possible will certainly work in the person's favor. When it comes to applying for highly competitive specialties like derm, ENT and plastic, I would like to see at least Step I score and some of the M3 grades as a bare minimum before any discussion about the prospect of matching can happen.
Don't take this personally, JP2740. It's just that your statement about having more than enough stats for derm is premature and a bit cheeky at this point in your education. That's all.
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1. There is a difference between hating on an entire field of medicine and not being interested in entering a specialty
2. You don't know if you're competitive for ENT/derm/etc until you take Step 1. So go study and stop posting here
