West coast residencies coming from the Midwest

[Handinhand]

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Hi all,

First of all, I'd like to say that I am not a pre-med gunner coming here to ask you guys what I need to do right now to guarantee I can become a neurosurgeon. I've come here to ask for some advice/clarification on a question that was presented to me by a 4th year medical student I know.

So, my background really quick. I did my undergrad at UW-Madison, and am currently taking a year off and applying to medical school. I have already been accepted to Wisconsin schools, which is where I am from, and because of cost reasons I don't plan on leaving Wisconsin when it will bring little benefit to me while costing me at least 15,000$/year more in tuition.

Recently I was talking to someone who is a 4th year medical student at the school I will be attending. They, like me, grew up in Wisconsin and did their undergrad at UW-Madison. They are applying to Ortho programs right now, and told me that they felt they did not have a great chance at West coast programs because of receiving all of their education at the same, mid-west school. They said that basically, even though they have a great application and have received a lot of attention from Mid-west and some east coast programs, the West coast programs have largely ignored them. They were told from faculty here that it's most likely because their application makes them look like they don't want to leave the midwest.

I don't know which speciality I'd like to go into (Some have more appeal to me than others, but I'm keeping my mind open to everything throughout the next 3-4 years). I also don't have a certain school/program that I'd like to end up at. However, I really like the west coast, and have definitely thought about moving out their at some point, possibly for residency.

Now, what I came here to ask (and I apologize for being so long-winded about this) is, will my spending all of my life, including doing all my education at the same mid-western school, work against me should I choose to apply to west-coast residency programs in the future. Certainly pre-clinical grades, step 1 score, letters of rec and what not are most important and where I will focus myself. I just figured I would ask people who have experience with residency programs across the country if there is any legitimacy to this geographic bias theory.

I appreciate any and all help, Thanks.

 

[smq123]

Moving to allopathic.

 

[smq123]

I guess I don't really understand what you plan on doing with regards to possible answers to your question.

Let's say that, yes, having lived in Wisconsin most of your life WILL hurt you when it comes time to apply to residency. So...what do you plan on doing about it? You've already made it clear that you do not plan on spending more money on tuition to go to an out of state school just on the off chance that you do want to go out west for residency, which makes sense. You're not even sure that you do want to go out west. How does the answer to your question change anything? 😕

 

[astrocreep96]

I'm also applying for ortho, coming from a southern school. Ortho is a bit different in that it heavily relies on away rotations. I rotated at one western program and have received a handful of interviews from western residencies including the one school in California I applied to (UCSD).

As an aside, I have a friend with similar stats applying to IM and he received 9 interview offers to the 10 programs he applied to, virtually all of which are the top IM programs.

 

[Handinhand]

I guess I don't really understand what you plan on doing with regards to possible answers to your question.

Let's say that, yes, having lived in Wisconsin most of your life WILL hurt you when it comes time to apply to residency. So...what do you plan on doing about it? You've already made it clear that you do not plan on spending more money on tuition to go to an out of state school just on the off chance that you do want to go out west for residency, which makes sense. You're not even sure that you do want to go out west. How does the answer to your question change anything? 😕

Well, basically I wanted to know if first, what I was told was at all true. Second, if it is, how much weight is put on it.

I'd like to be as fiscally responsible with which medical school I pick; but if staying in-state means it would limit me in possible residencies then it might be worth it to me to attend a different school and pay a little bit more.

 

[Brachyury]

If you want to do your residency on the West Coast and you have no ties to the region, your best bet, as others have done, is to do one or more away rotations during your fourth year

 

[Smurfette]

If you are competitive for your chosen specialty, don't worry about this. You are years away from applying to residency programs, and you may not even *want* to apply to many programs on the west coast at that time. And if you do, you can do away rotations to try to boost your chances.

If you are still worried, call UW and MCW and ask them for a copy of their 2011 match list. They will give one to you. See how many people matched on the west coast. Keep in mind that midwesterners tend to stay in the midwest, but there will still be a fair number of people who are heading to the west coast (and east coast, for that matter).

 

[qmcat]

I agree with the other posters, especially about doing an away rotation on the west coast if you want to match there.

On the other hand, I don't think it would be that bad if you're already willing to stay in the midwest for 4 years of med school, why not do your residency there as well (if you don't get into a west coast program) and then move to the west coast afterwards to look for a job? It's not like residency is your only chance to relocate.

Also, just wanted to say it's hard to figure out anything from looking at a match list because those people matching in California/Oregon/Washington could just be students who were born/raised on the west coast and moved to Wisconson or the midwest for med school and wanted to come back for residency. They already have an edge over you because they have ties there.

 

[drizzt3117]

n=1, but fwiw I have interviews from every west coast academic program with the exception of OHSU and USC in a competitive specialty. If you're interested in a specific program, rotate there as a m4. If you're talking about UW, matching in ortho should be a pretty low concern, we've put someone into HSS each of the last two years. We've matched a lot of people (almost all of the people who wanted to go) to the west coast recently, with quite a few people at Stanford/UCSF in fields like derm, urology, rad onc, ENT, etc. Geographic bias is specialty dependent, I would say it certainly exists but from purely anecdotal evidence from this year's class, it seems like it's somewhat more prevalent among east coast schools than the west coast, we'll see how it plays out, though.

 

[drizzt3117]

I agree with the other posters, especially about doing an away rotation on the west coast if you want to match there.

On the other hand, I don't think it would be that bad if you're already willing to stay in the midwest for 4 years of med school, why not do your residency there as well (if you don't get into a west coast program) and then move to the west coast afterwards to look for a job? It's not like residency is your only chance to relocate.

Also, just wanted to say it's hard to figure out anything from looking at a match list because those people matching in California/Oregon/Washington could just be students who were born/raised on the west coast and moved to Wisconson or the midwest for med school and wanted to come back for residency. They already have an edge over you because they have ties there.

Match list is also hard to interpret because 85% of our class is from WI and a huge portion of them would like to stay in the Midwest, so you don't know how many even applied to west coast residencies. There is a ridiculous amount of people doing ortho in my class (~15) but I know at least 2-3 have gotten LA and bay area interviews.