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VSAS closed for 2 weeks
- Thread starter You shall know the Truth
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deleted1038938
can someone explain to me if the loss of aways is really that detrimental? if it affects us all, wouldn't it be ok
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Except some students benefit from others not having aways. Particularly if they are applying to a field where they have a home program. Or if they have poor clinical skills and wont preform well on a rotation.
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deleted1038938
Who wouldn't benefit though? No one at my school ever matches at a program they do an away at. It's usually just recommended for the letter.
Also if they have poor clinical skills wouldn't their home program see through that?
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Some of us (DOs cough cough) don't even have a home program...I think that's what is more meant
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I'm hoping programs will consider this and change their evaluation process for the better
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deleted1038938
Oh yikes. That would make getting a letter difficult. I'm sorry.
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Yep! I'm an M3, my two rotations cancelled were a second IM and my specialty of choice (neuro). Was planning on getting LOR in both. We'll see how this shakes out haha So from all of us on the DO side, this **** needs to get figured out fast
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Yep, double worse when its neurosurg or ortho.
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As mentioned above, DO students and MDs with no home departments will be affected most. Also your group of candidates who are less competitive on paper but are grinders who typically “rock aways”, get along with people and interview well will be disadvantaged vs the 260, AOA with no personalities that go unmatched.. these people may have a better shot due to looking better on paper and potential “zoom” interviewees not being able to tease out the weirdo in them
Btw I am talking about the surg subspecialties where 3-4 aways is the norm
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This sounds so naive.
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It's not just letters. I didn't get any letters from my aways. I did aways to get to know a program and let the program get to know me. I would not have gotten an interview at the place I matched had it not been for the away. I was told this from the PD before my away and after the match when he told me he was so glad I did an away there. If you're better in clinicals than you are on paper, you just lost your chance to prove it.
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deleted393595
Mass Effect, are you in a medical or surgical specialty?
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Some MDs as well.
That and the way EM has it set up, it makes aways basically a requirement
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I'm psych.
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But again, if no one can do aways then it nullifies SLOEs anyway so they end up in the same boat as everyone else.
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If there are no aways, you'll likely see a higher rate of inbreeding institutionally and regionally.
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I truly don’t think I would have matched where I did without my away. It was kind of out of my league with my board failure, but like you I shine in clinicals vs on paper. I did my away in November and got the late interview invite for the last day in January due to my performance.
this is going to be a lot harder on the DO world than the MD world I think.
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Not true. You could get a SLOE from your home program. But if you dont have a home program...
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Looking at the neurosurgery data
Contrary to popular belief there are not a large number of candidates in the 250+ range that are going to benefit from this, because they are bad clinically or have no personalities.
the people that are going to get impacted by this are people with marginal step performance for the specialty.
Contrary to popular belief there are not a large number of candidates in the 250+ range that are going to benefit from this, because they are bad clinically or have no personalities.
the people that are going to get impacted by this are people with marginal step performance for the specialty.
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Agree
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That might as well just be a letter of recommendation which again, all other specialties will at least have that if they have a home program. So again, same boat.
The Council of Residency Directors in Emergency Medicine has basically advised that programs not even look at SLOEs and consider non-sloe letters. I personally don't like the SLOE process anyway because it places a disparity on how much money people are shelling out to get into the specialty, much like the super competitive fields where you basically have to do aways. This app season is going to be a sh-t storm.
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If none of your classmates ever match where they do away rotations, that hints rather strongly at weaknesses in your program's clinical training,
THIS --
Away rotations allow hard-working students to audition for specialties and programs that might otherwise be out of their leagues.
So who benefits from the probable cancellations? Students from top schools with strong board scores and good connections in their fields. The ones who don't need any help.
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Students from top schools and good board scores were going to match anyway. Its the people that are hoping on wowing programs with their clinical chops and personality, but in reality that is such a small portion of applicants that have benefited from that in the past for competitive specialties.
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Yeah, I feel like this doesn't get emphasized enough. There are so many people I've heard planning to WOW everybody on their away rotations, and a lot of people who feel that their clinical acumen is significantly better than their knowledge base. This is definitely true for some people, but I think most people just feel like they're doing better clinically because they're not actually compared in a head to head fashion against a larger population.
For instance, somebody who gets 75th percentile on step 1 is ~240. A good score, but not outstanding, and a bit below average for the most competitive specialties. A 240 student might feel that they need to impress on their away rotations.
But somebody who is at the 75th percentile clinically and only has 3 other students on the rotation with them will likely be the best student on the rotation. So they'll obviously feel like they're doing a great job and impressing everybody, when in reality, it's only the >95th percentile clinical students or students who are able to make special social connections that get remembered.
The people this is really going to hurt are those low tier MD and DO students with otherwise strong applications on paper (board scores, research) without home programs in their specialties. They're relying on aways for letters of recommendation, and for these students, away rotations do get their applications looked at instead of discarded.
