What makes you competitive for a fellowship?

[rocketbooster]

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What makes you competitive for a fellowship?

For residency it seems more clear-cut. Step 1 score generally gets you interviews, then your recs, research, and interview gets you in. From what I hear, if you have the average matching Step 1 score, then you'll probably match somewhere.

For a fellowship, there really isn't a big standardized test to compare applicants is there? Is it just based on recs and research at this point? Seems very subjective?

Is it very difficult to get a retina or cornea fellowship?

 

[orbitsurgMD]

Fellowship programs are highly individual, so useful comparisons between programs are much more difficult than similar comparisons between residencies.

Having a faculty member who is connected to his subspecialty community who can endorse your application is helpful. Publication is helpful. Support of your program director is helpful. Doing well on your OKAPs is helpful.

Sometimes it is a matter of chemistry and chance. Generally, retina is competitive, nearly as much as plastics. Cornea has competetive programs too. Big name institutions attract applicants, but so do the less broadly known programs known mostly to the cognescenti and those in the subspecialty for their excellence and quality of training experience.

 

[e4e]

I am not there yet. But what comes from my seniors is contact contact and more contact. Residency program and research projects are of secondary importance. OKAP worths less than toilet paper.

 

[rocketbooster]

I am not there yet. But what comes from my seniors is contact contact and more contact. Residency program and research projects are of secondary importance. OKAP worths less than toilet paper.

What do you mean by contact? Having connections with fellowship programs?

 

[MR1]

What that means is knowing people in the field. So if you want to do retina having a mentor who is known in the field at your residency is very important. Research is still pretty high though as well.

You want to kick a** your entire residency so everyone says you basically walk on water