Would appreciate some honest feedback...

[alby1202]

I would greatly appreciate any thoughts/advice anyone may have on my situation. I am an IMG with US citizenship, graduated in june 2009, finished my social service requirement in my grad country in May 2010. Step 1 75/184 and step2ck 84/205 on first try, passed step 2cs on my 2nd try. Since May I have been shadowing a critical care specialist in Los Angeles at a community hospital with IM and family residency programs, and been in close contact with members of both programs. No publications yet but I am currently working on a meta-analysis but probably wont get published until next year. I applied in late october to mostly IM and a few family programs, and I have had precious little interview invites. MY ECFMg certificate was not uploaded till mid-december. I applied to a wide variety of programs (mostly low tier IM), all in large metropolitan areas. So far I have only one LOR from US faculty (IM), and I will be starting a new observership this month (OBGYN).

This was probably a mistake but in ERAS I applied for many categorical and prelim IM programs at the same institution, my logic was that if not considered for categorical they would consider me for a prelim at institutions that I was very interested in. In the eras application for prelims I put IM as the specialty I was considering. Was this just stepping on my own toes?

The prospect of a year of professional limbo is extremely disheartening if not impossible, and I would be willing to go just about anywhere to get into the system, if just for a year.

Basically, I would like to know if there if there is anything I can still do about the match as the scramble seems utterly chaotic and totally unreliable. Also just from the quick glance how competitive is my application? Should I have gotten more interviews if I had everything in early?

Is my low step 1 excluding me from even low tier family programs???

I would appreciate any input. Thanks and good luck to all. Happy new year!

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[Marianne11]

How many programs are you ranking? How many interviews did you do?

 

[alby1202]

How many programs are you ranking? How many interviews did you do?

I applied to over 50 programs. Two interviews so far. Both at places where they know me personally.

 

[peppy]

I would be willing to go just about anywhere to get into the system, if just for a year.

If you really just want anything for the year, your best bet may be to plan to scramble into a preliminary surgery spot. It would be a lot of hard work but it would be something to do for the year.

I hope things work out for you though. After all, even just one interview still gives you a chance.

 

[BuckeyesFan]

I was an attending in a family medicine program up until a few years ago. We only considered foreign medical graduates if they had at least a year of training in the United States - medical student rotations or a transitional residency year in the US were preferred, but if not it could be a shadowing experience like you are describing. Your scores are within the range of what I think would be considered for less competitive family medicine programs. I think often (at least for family medicine), programs in smaller towns tend to be a bit less competitive because everyone wants to live in a city, so you might want to expand your applications to some smaller towns if it's not too late to do that. I know the scramble sounds chaotic, but that might be a good option, too. You might not have much control over where you went, but there are a lot of programs that depend on having a full class and are very interested in finding people to fill them (IM, surgery, FP). Also, continuing your experiences with shadowing in the US might be helpful, particularly if it leads to some strong references.

 

[Buzz Me]

I applied to over 50 programs. Two interviews so far. Both at places where they know me personally.

I would have applied more broadly, and earlier. I think what's hurting your application is the low Step 1 score and the failed attempt on Step 2 CS.

 

[alby1202]

Thanks for the info. I appreciate it. Good luck on match day!!

 

[yankees85]

I was under the impression that a 184 is not a passing score on Step 1 meaning that you won't get ranked from most (if not all) programs. Correct me if I'm wrong...

 

[Law2Doc]

I was under the impression that a 184 is not a passing score on Step 1 meaning that you won't get ranked from most (if not all) programs. Correct me if I'm wrong...

In '07 it went up from 182 to 185. In '10 it went up to 188. so depending on when OP took it, 184 could have been passing, and if you passed when you took it, you passed. That being said, when you list the current applicants with the lowest pass scores, the OP's 184 is going to look worse than everyone else's passed by the skin of their teeth 188.