Hi Everyone,
As of now, I am deciding between two medical schools, University of Iowa Carver College and USC/Keck.I love both. The clinical environment at Keck is amazing to say the least, and they seem to really take care of their students. It's also P/F and organ system. On the other hand, Iowa has a great program that is higher ranked (not sure of the importance of this) and I can see myself very happy there. Its cheap and convenient. Since I like each almost equally, it comes down to finances. I save about 120k over the span of four years at Iowa and will graduate debt free. This makes Iowa a little more appealing.
This is where I can use your help. I think I'd like to match into orthopedics and pursue orthopedic oncology possibly, and I would like to do this on the west coast. Either Arizona (St. Josephs), California, or New Mexico.
I've heard of regional matching, and matching at your university must put you at a large advantage right? Should away rotations, good scores on the boards, research, and grades at Iowa be enough? I know you shouldn't evaluate a school by I've seen some pretty impressive matches come out of USC and thier average USLME score is over ten points higher than Iowa's. What do you guys think? I know this seems like an SDN question, but I wanted to talk to people that know what they're talking about.
What are some other steps I should take in order to be considered competitive for orthopedics? I listed everything I know of in the previous paragraph.
Thanks for everyone's help. I really appreciate any guidance.
