How imp. is where you went to med school?
By Guest on Wednesday, 01 October 2003
Posted in Match Center
Replies 4
Likes 0
Views 26
Votes 0
Hi, I'm from Puerto Rico, which is considered part of the US in terms of medical school (so it is not a foreign school) but I'm worried about how much that would affect me is I want to do a ortho residency in the US. Another issue is that I'm a female and my step 1 was 231 and I think that I'm in the upper third of my class. I have done very little research. I'm very interested in ortho but I'm worried because of the comments that I have heard from people from my school saying how hard it is to get into, how hard it would be for a female to live a life of an ortho, etc. I know that everybody have an opinion about other specialities that most of the time comes out of ignorance. Also I have no idea which programs would be more in my reach, so if I decide to apply I don't know where should I concetrate my energy. I know I should not be intimidated about other people comments but I'm just worried that I might be wasting my time applying to an speciality that maybe I have slim chance of matching into. Thanks for any advice that you could give me.
I have no idea how programs consider PR as far as med schools go, but I wouldn't let comments by other people be the major factor in a career decision that you have to live with for life. Ortho is a touch field to match into even if you are from a competitive US school. It also can be a grueling residency. But after careful consideration, if ortho is what you want and you can't see yourself doing anything else, how could you not go for it? That decision can only come from within yourself, not something anyone says.

If you apply intelligently to a variety of programs and make a strong impression at away rotations, you probably have the same chance as a lot of people applying. But that being said, the selection process can be so desperately random. I thought I was a decent candidate, but failed to match - so who really knows!
Guest
·
22 years ago
·
0 Likes
·
0 Votes
·
0 Comments
·
DJD, could you post your stats? IE number of programs applied to, interviews, etc. Thanks
Guest
·
22 years ago
·
0 Likes
·
0 Votes
·
0 Comments
·
Sorry, I should clarify - In retrospect, I made a couple of significant mistakes when I applied last year. That's why I stressed "applying intelligently", which I didn't do. To highlight the biggest mistakes, so you don't have to ask: I applied to 25 programs and I did only one away rotation at a program that is very academic (competetive). I also ended up interviewing at several programs that were not very embracing to women. Despite having really good feedback from 2 programs, in the end it didn't work out.

My stats:
interviews: 7 out of 25
step1: 228
top 16% of class
2 ortho research projects - no publications at the time
good LORs (I think, although I didn't read them)
Guest
·
22 years ago
·
0 Likes
·
0 Votes
·
0 Comments
·
View Full Post