cons of away electives, & question re boston/sf programs

Your stats are strong enough to guarantee numerous interviews but there are plenty of other applicants with the same numbers you have. You will therefore be one of many in the same boat. The only way to really stand out and bring yourself to the front of the pack is to rotate at a program and get to know both the attendings and the residents. Remember that you will be spending 5 years with these people and there is no reason for them to choose a wild card when they have plenty of "known entities" to choose from with equally impressive scores. This may seen subjective to you but it is more important to have a group of residents who work well together than it is to have a higher average step I score for the class.

As far as rotating at one program hurting your chances elsewhere - sure that is a possibility. Ortho is a small community and certain program directors/chairpersons my harbor animosity toward others. It sounds childish but it is what it is! However, you cannot have your cake and eat it too. Decide where you and your future fiancee want to live (congrats by the way) and rotate at two programs in that city (and at your home program). This can potentially hurt you at other programs in the same city but the benefits outway any negatives. You do not have to advertise where you rotated but recommendation letters will certainly inform everyone where you have been.


Post questions about specific programs if you want to discuss their competitiveness.

Hope this helps.

you know it's funny, some of my fellow residents were discussing yesterday what makes some med students better than others. assuming that your intelligence/knowledge base is suffice, what is that quality that makes you a star on an away rotation. we talked it over and came up with this answer.

if you have to ask then you don't have it.

where do you learn this "skill"??? on the playground when you are 4 years old. if you help others, share, don't fight, don't talk back, listen you are pretty much better than most medical students. i hate to simplify it that much, but now being on the resident side, it's amazing how many socially inept MDs there are, which is probably a function of a number of things. hyperfocusing their whole lives and becoming too high strung. many but not all have been spoiled by our parents so we could focus on school. a host of other personality disorders that medicine self selects run rumpant in hospitals. wait until you are residents and i promise some of you will agree!

I am an MS3 so my opinion is, quite frankly, worthless. However, I have a fundamental problem with some of the tactics in this game we play for residency.

1. Hiding behind a big step 1 sore......My thinking is if you rocked it once, why not just take it and rock it again. It has to look impressive if someone kills both Step 1 and 2 before interview time. I see it as refusing a rematch against an opponent you have already beaten.....

2. This whole away busisness about the risk benefit. I plan on rotating at places I want to match. So for me an away is a chance for me to show these people why they want me. I mean a big score is nice, but hard work is just as important. If you have a great away, then they have some much more than an application. I think that if you don't do any away rotations -- this might send the message you are hiding something. An away tests your character and qualities that cannot be measured numerically --- like the same ones that differentiate between good and bad doctors.

I know that every one will say why take the risk.....but I dont think I should change my tactics now.

SCiFEe & perpetualbone, i split off your postings & my response into another thread ... thought it might help to do that because i think you guys bring up an interesting topic that deserves discussion, and at the same time it would be helpful for this thread to stay focused. here it is ...

Blue,

I think you are forgetting an extremely important reason for doing away rotations: they are not only a way for programs to get to know you, but it is a way to see if a program is right for you. This last fall I rotated at a program that I thought I was going to rank number one. It is a big name program that I thought I would really like. After about a week into my rotation, however, I realized it was not the program for me. I am very grateful I did a rotation there, because there is a good chance I would have ended up ranking it highly and would have been in for a huge shock if I matched there. I also rotated at another program that I was luke-warm about before rotating there and absolutely fell in love with the program. The importance of seeing programs on away rotations can not be underestimated.

doc, is there any way to do that aside from aways though? i mean, you end up applying to way more programs.

it's a somewhat valid reason if you know which programs you want ... whereas for me, location matters far more than most things. i would rather be in the right location, working too hard, with crummy people ... than in the wrong location, in the best program.

maybe that sounds bad to some of you ... but it's a matter of priorities. everything and everyone i love is in the northeast and bay area ... and being away from them in the best (i don't mean reputation) program in the world will make me hate my life far more than having their support in a tough program.

make sense at all?

Howzit, i'll post some specific programs soon to try and get some specific comments ... i might just start some threads for them to try and organize the info for posterity ...

Something that made a great deal of sense to me ...

In particular, I hadn't really thought about it from the perspective that if the rotation ends up sucking and ruins my chances of matching there, I probably wouldn't want to match there anyway. It does make me have more faith that if I work hard on an away, I'm more likely to help myself than hurt myself ultimately.

Thanks!

my followup thread re aways at specific (SF) programs:



b