The Gateway to Your Orthopaedic Career.
  Thursday, 20 March 2014
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I recently finished my first 2 pre-clinical years (P/F system) at a top 40 west coast public school and received an even 260 on my Step 1 (hopefully this won't just be an average score by the time I apply!). I started Ortho research with the PD at my school in January of my first year and continued the project during the summer between 1st and 2nd year. So far this project has yielded 2 posters and a podium presentation I delivered at a WOA conference. Should be submitting the paper soon as 1st author and hoping it will be published by the time I apply for residency...I am wondering where I currently stand in terms of strength as an applicant and what I can do between now and when I apply to increase my odds of matching into a good ortho program.

Also, is it important to meet the Chairman of Ortho at my school? I'd assume it is since I hear some programs want a LOR from the Chairman, however how does one get to know their Chairman closely enough to get a strong LOR? I don't anticipate doing any research projects with him, and outside of meeting him or maybe shadowing him a few times, the thought of asking him for a LOR for a student he has only met a few times strikes me as odd...

A little bit more about myself: worked as an EMT for 4 years during college and trauma tech for 2 years after college where I worked really closely with the ortho residents on plenty of reductions and splinting at a level 1 trauma center (not sure if this info is relevant to residency apps, but I thought it might be unique experience); biomedical engineering background with quite a bit of undergrad research with companies, however no publications yet
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Thanks in advance for any tips/suggestions.
12 years ago
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#58407
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You're sitting in great shape. At this point just focus on doing well during third year as a lot (maybe all) programs put a heavy emphasis on your performance on required clerkships - particularly IM and surgery. Besides that, if you can get to know your chairman that'd be great, but you'll have time to do that during your home ortho rotation. Be thinking about where you want to do your aways at.
12 years ago
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#58408
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Nice job on Step 1 man, great work.

Prior experience critical on apps and interviews. Uniqueness is key, when 900+ people apply who all generally look the same. EMT/Tech will help - they def helped me.

Would focus on 3rd year grades, but don't flip if one or two don't go your way. A bunch of PDs who I spoke to after the whole match process ended indicated that they really don't know what to make of clerkship grades, since some places give a lot of honors and others don't. Just do your best, learn a lot, be nice, and hopefully at minimum your comments will reflect that you're someone people want to work with.

At my school (borderline top 50 in NE), ortho chairman writes a composite letter based on opinions throughout faculty expressed during home clerkship eval. I knew mine somewhat, but if you feel there are others in your dept who you have better chemistry with - don't chase titles. The same goes for your other letters. People want quality experiences, not quality names.

For research - you have 2 options. There appear to be a TON of places who heavily promote research years now. I think when I interviewed it was almost 50-50 amongst those interviewing with me. Fact is, research years will give an applicant a huge density of publications - or at least should if you put the effort into it. But you don't have to do one to match. In your case, I'd find myself a reasonable clinical study with a high likelihood of publication, and a decent chance of follow-up/follow-through secondary papers. Find faculty who are well reputed for punching out papers and see what you can do. Also talk to residents and see if they need someone to do (well appreciated) grunt work. Can never go wrong with that.

Hope this helps.
12 years ago
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#58409
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Congrats on what you've done so far. You've set yourself up to being able to match into orthopedics with a very high probability of success as long as you're a hard worker who will make a good impression on rotations. Source: I read applications and interviewed 60+ applicants this year and sat on an admissions committee.
Great news that you're one of the ones that will almost certainly match. Now is your chance to improve your application in order to be able to pick where you want to match. If you're content on letting the NRMP and rank order lists decide just keep doing what you're doing, but if you want to have more control of your future I think the best way to improve your application is to set up a year of dedicated research (at another institution would increase the size of your 'network'). Just some thoughts from an resident with a similarly strong application who loves what I'm doing beyond anything, but would love it just a bit more if I had better been able to control where I ended up.
12 years ago
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#58410
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Thanks for the replies and the suggestions guys, much appreciated!
12 years ago
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#58411
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So far may you've done well with the things you can control - getting into research, doing well on Step 1 and the first years of medical school.

First - cont doing what you're doing. Kill all your clinical rotations, act like you care when you're doing surgery and internal medicine even if it's boring. Always try to be the best medical student on every service and you'll be fine.

For the LOR from the chairman, it definitely looks good to have a chairman letter. Not having one if you have an academic ortho department at your school may cause some to raise questions. Not a deal breaker by any means, but some programs may wonder why you don't have one from the department. It's definitely odd to get the letter from someone that you've never met with but if you work with others in the department they should be able to help with drafting it. You basically want it to say "he's solid, we have an ortho department that would be glad to have him"

For research at the time I interviewed I had a paper completed and submitted but not yet accepted. Just the fact that I had done that was enough to "check the box" so to speak. Depends on the place you're interviewing at, but at my program when we're looking at applicants with research we're basically looking for involvement (so many people just have names on the paper and essentially did nothing), understanding of it (many people just entered data and have no idea what they did), and that it was done or not. Not a deal breaker if it isn't but it's a nice addition.

Don't stress out yet man, just kill all of third year.

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12 years ago
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#58412
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As everyone else has said, you have done a fantastic job setting yourself up for success and honestly all of this stuff is more than half the battle. As others have said as well, don't get too upset with yourself if you don't honor every clinical rotation. As long as you honor surgery and maybe medicine and peds (+/-), then you keep yourself in that great position.
As far as your question with the chairman, its a great one and one I feel pretty strongly about. I absolutely think you should sit down and meet with him now. When I was a first year medical student I was advised to do the same. I started meeting with the chairman in my first year and then would set up an annual or biannual meeting from there. Dress nice (tie/jacket or whatever is appropriate in Cali, ha), bring in your CV and just ask his opinion of how he thinks you are set up and what you can do to continue to improve your application. The meetings will get less awkward as they go on and you will start to earn some name recognition. That way, when it comes time to do your rotation, he knows you by name and is familiar with you. Furthermore, when it comes time for a letter it will just be easy and he may actually write something personal instead of the standard form, which comes off so much better at interviews. When I had to ask for my letter of rec is wasn't a problem at all, whereas others in my class had to remind our chairman who they were, what they had done, etc.

Those are my thoughts, take them or leave them, but otherwise you're doing great, I'm sure you'll be successful in matching
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