What are our chances?

[sdwigint]

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My husband is a 3rd year med student, and I am helping him find residency programs to apply to. Here is our problem: He wants to do radiology, but we aren't that competitive. He did average on the USMLE, and has average grades. What should he do to be more competitive, and what kind of programs should he apply to?

 

[oldandtired]

Many applicants get positions in radiology and other competitive fields every year with average numbers. Your husband still has time to get great letters of recommendation, work on interviewing and do research.

Pick programs based on places you would not mind living. Remember radiology is a four year residency after the internship. He should apply to both community and university programs. I think these days people are applying to thirty programs on average. Good luck!

 

[Brougham]

sdwigint,
While I kinda agree with oldandtired's advice let me tell you the story of the rad's match at my school. First, I'll preface all this by saying that I am not going into rads and I am by no means an expert on the rads match.
I go to a non-top 20 allopathic med school. There were 14 people who applied to rads this year. Of those 14 only 6 got in. The other 8 had to scamble into things IM, FP, gas, and surgery. The main reason I can think of that some of these people didn't match is because they didn't apply broadly enough.
What I mean by that is that they where too picky about what part of the country they applied too. I don't think that it is reasonable to try and go into something as competitive as rad's and actually think you can pick what part of the country you want to go to (unless you're a stellar canidate from a top 10 school).
So, my advice to your husband is to apply to programs all over, apply to A LOT of prorams (i.e. >40), apply to both university and community programs, do multiple radiology roations (i.e. one at your top choice and one at "weaker" programs that he thinks he has a good shot at), work hard and try and get involved in some rads research if possible.
I don't mean to be discouraging but I saw a lot of my classmates screw themselves this year and it wasn't a pretty scene. I wish you and your husband the best of luck.

 

[Celiac Plexus]

Follow oldtiredman's advice. My class (mid-ranked med school) had about a 50% match rate. But I think that the folks that didn't match were not competitive, ie below average board scores, no research, low class rank. It seemed like a lot of people jumped on the rads bandwagon too late in the game...

Anecdotal: One of my friends in the class matched at his 6th choice (a lower tier univ. program) and he was an average student, with average board scores, and one publication.

 

[nucleardude]

we had 12/14 match from a middle of the road med school. 1 of the 2 that didn't match apparently overestimated their credentials (against the advice of the dept advisors) and didn't apply widely enough. not sure about the other one...