Year off before residency

[Medstudentgenes]

***long post** Hello, I'm a final year medical student in a Canadian medical school. I'm 24 years old and am in an accelerated program. I am have interest in Medical genetics, IM and possibly psychiatry, having applied in all three. Due to family obligations and partially to the fact that I got into medical school straight out of high school , I am not sure I will be able to ultimately participate in the match this year. Thankfully, I don't have much debt due to the education system of the country I'm studying in.
I was planning to eventually pursue research in medical genetics, try to do more electives in the field in various locations and start a masters in research if I were to take time off (my resume is mainly geared towards psych atm (my initial interest) and I "discovered" genetics later in clerkship)
I am a fairly good student, with a good GPA, and very good evaluations in IM and genetics.
I was wondering if any of you had similar experiences of taking a year off before residency, how it affected your match in the subsequent year and what you chose to do during that time off.

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[CidHighwind]

Can you try to delay graduating or do some research? You can take a year off, but all these programs will ask you “what are you doing now”.

 

[Mass Effect]

***long post** Hello, I'm a final year medical student in a Canadian medical school. I'm 24 years old and am in an accelerated program. I am have interest in Medical genetics, IM and possibly psychiatry, having applied in all three. Due to personal reasons and partially to the fact that I got into medical school straight out of high school , I am not sure I will be able to ultimately participate in the match this year. Thankfully, I don't have much debt due to the education system of the country I'm studying in.
I was planning to eventually pursue research in medical genetics, try to do more electives in the field in various locations and start a masters in research if I were to take time off (my resume is mainly geared towards psych atm (my initial interest) and I "discovered" genetics later in clerkship)
I am a fairly good student, with a good GPA, and very good evaluations in IM and genetics.
I was wondering if any of you had similar experiences of taking a year off before residency, how it affected your match in the subsequent year and what you chose to do during that time off.

If you're trying to match in the U.S. a year off will hurt you. The time that you're most competitive is as a US senior. I get that you went straight through, but the time to take time off would have been either during med school (a research year) or the year before you started med school. Between med school and residency raises red flags. If you need to do this, I would delay your med school graduation for one year to do research.

 

[radsisrad]

Agree with the above. I'm not sure what medical genetics residencies are like, but - as far as I know - there are substantial clinical IM and/or Peds components, and PDs are wary of applicants whose skills might have atrophied since med school, regardless of competitiveness on paper.

As an aside, I should maybe take a glance at the latest FA for Step 1... I'm sure there are at least 20 meds in there I didn't learn about in med school.

 

[libertyyne]

Agree with the above. I'm not sure what medical genetics residencies are like, but - as far as I know - there are substantial clinical IM and/or Peds components, and PDs are wary of applicants whose skills might have atrophied since med school, regardless of competitiveness on paper.

As an aside, I should maybe take a glance at the latest FA for Step 1... I'm sure there are at least 20 meds in there I didn't learn about in med school.

There are like 5 new meds I have discovered being talked about on wards that werent on step 1 , and i took the thing last year.