A friend is planning to apply to a pediatrics residency in the upcoming year. She is interested in a university-based program ( academic program), and is unsure which program would be the best fit.She is also interested in doing research work during residency - so which pediatric residency program would be the best fit. Her career interests are in the field of allergy/immunology/rheumatology.
Which pediatric residency would be the best fit? USMLE step I was 250, USMLE STEP II was 278
- Thread starter merna.a
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Is your friend a US MD grad? If so she is competitive for any program in the country based on her stats, and realistically she can pursue those fellowships from any of the major academic programs. So I would strongly choose program based on location at that point.
What are major academic programs that you may recommend?
She is also an IMG.
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Where did your friend get her medical degree? Many programs have biases against IMGs (not saying it's right, just acknowledging there is). As your friend may already know, looking at Match statistics, the typical preference is US MD > US DO > IMG. Your friend's board score is excellent for any peds program, but her IMG status may limit which academic programs she can get into. Competitive programs like CHOP, Hopkins, or Boston don't take IMGs usually. Even when they do, they're usually from Canada or western European counties, and not from Caribbean.
I would recommend her to research the programs by looking at the current residents - can she find a program that accepted IMGs in the last 3 years? To be blunt, less desirable locations would have better chances (Mississippi over Houston, St. Louis over Chicago, Arizona or New Mexico over California, etc.). Those would be good places to start with. Not that she can't shoot for the moon, but it'll be very unlikely.
Once she completes US peds residency, finding an allergy/immunology or pediatric rheumatology fellowship would get much easier. They are not very competitive fellowships and often don't fill all available spots.
I would recommend her to research the programs by looking at the current residents - can she find a program that accepted IMGs in the last 3 years? To be blunt, less desirable locations would have better chances (Mississippi over Houston, St. Louis over Chicago, Arizona or New Mexico over California, etc.). Those would be good places to start with. Not that she can't shoot for the moon, but it'll be very unlikely.
Once she completes US peds residency, finding an allergy/immunology or pediatric rheumatology fellowship would get much easier. They are not very competitive fellowships and often don't fill all available spots.
impressivemangojuice
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She will need to do a year of research tbh so that the PI makes some calls for her to get noticed at some good programs. Otherwise she will end up in the usual IMG friendly places in NYC.
I also saw that you asked about derma residency after peds residency, if that is for the same person, focus on doing a two year research fellowship on J1 in derm and then apply for derm only if that is the main target. Emory has some IMGs and there is one girl that matched in prelim with derm as pgy2 recently, she worked as a researcher at Uni of Calif Irvine and got in somewhere else.
I also saw that you asked about derma residency after peds residency, if that is for the same person, focus on doing a two year research fellowship on J1 in derm and then apply for derm only if that is the main target. Emory has some IMGs and there is one girl that matched in prelim with derm as pgy2 recently, she worked as a researcher at Uni of Calif Irvine and got in somewhere else.
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