USMLE Step 1 Scores

[Luxian]

So do you think it'd be crazy to give up a top 10 acceptance for a lower ranked school that you simply liked better?

No way. I'm planning on doing exactly that, assuming I get into one of my two favorites. I mean, seriously. As long as they are comparable schools, go to the one you like better! You're gonna be spending four hard years there. Make sure it's in a place you actually like!

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[Virgil]

Something like neurosurg is going to have a lot of MD/PhDs. That really opens doors.
Look at UCSF's residents, about half of them have MD/PhDs.

http://neurosurgery.medschool.ucsf.edu/faculty_staff/residents.html

I have to agree that if you are a good student 3rd year, get good LORs and do well on the boards you will have the opportunity to do well in the match. I go to a middle of the road school that is unranked by USnews yet one of those residents from UCSF came from my school.

Remember too that not all programs are very competitive. Internal med, which is the jumping off point for a ton of specialties is pretty much a buyer's market.

And to my surprise, so is general surgery (more or less). But what bugs me is that once I'm a resident, I might have to do 2 years of research (5+2) so I'm competitive for some of the fellowships that come after. Basically, it's a damned rat race until I'm grey in the hair and blue in the face.

The bottom line is this: it would be nice for my mom to be proud that her kid went to Johns Hopkins and did his residency at MGH and bla bla bla but it doesn't matter to me so much that I'd spend at least 2 extra years of my life doing crap I don't want (research, etc.) and spend the rest of my life as an academic physician. That's not my cup of tea, and based on my current research experiences, it wouldn't make me very happy. What I want for MYSELF is to become solely a practicing physician (not academic) but keep my doors open for competitive residencies in order for me to do what I love (which may or may not be a very competitive residency...it could be ortho, internal medicine or anything in between). I guess with good grades, test scores, LORs, etc. but a lack of research, hopefully I can get competitive residencies at some good programs which don't focus on training academic physicians (community hospitals). In fact, why even apply to programs which aren't terribly interested in training community physicians and require you to do research? I think I now have a better understanding of why MD's from Nevada (most of which want to be community physicians as I do) don't often match into MGH.

 

[BigRedder]

From the WSJ article posted below, it looks like it happened at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. I know it both are affiliated with Harvard, but BWH a separate program from MGH?

Yes, BWH is a separate program. It's quite good, in fact I know a female neurosurgeon there. They basically invented open MRI for use during brain surgery.