Need an advice...

[ym212]

Hi guys, I need advice from those of you who have gone thru the residency application process.

I'm going for the 2011 Match, and I've done IM, Ob/Gyn, Psych cores and a couple of Medicine electives so far. I am deciding between IM, Peds, and Neuro as my speciality. I am 100% NOT interested in surgery.

Right now I am scheduled to do Peds in Dec 2009, and Surgery from March to May 2010. However, I am thinking about delaying Surgery to June-Aug 2010 in order to take important electives (Peds electives and Neuro) in March-May 2010. I want these electives to be on the MSPE letter.

Is it a bad idea to push a core rotation this close to September? After reading about the whole application process myself, I personally didn't see anything wrong with this plan. But, I might be missing some information... I'd appreciate any inputs you can give me. Thanks!

[BrianB4837]

Core grades are an important part of your application, I would at all costs make sure you have all your cores done (if the school has them available of course) before sending out your applications. Comments in your MSPE letter from a core are far more important than comments from an elective. Comments from electives were not even included in my MSPE letter! Do surgery first. That is my advice.

[georgelucas45]

Comments in your MSPE letter from a core are far more important than comments from an elective.

You really think that 1-2 lines of surgery comments on the MSPE letter outweighs getting LORs and good comments on your MSPE from the field that you are applying to? There is not much the OP can do about the peds situation. As far as surgery goes, I really have no idea how important it is for the MSPE, do you have any supporting information for your claim? Hopefully others can add to this as I am still currently going through the match.

[BrianB4837]

My evidence I guess is that the OP had to ask this to begin with. We're already at a disadvantage in the match, anything that can be a potential negative that could be avoided should be. It is not convention to do electives before cores, you will probably be asked why in every interview.

In addition, core grades seem to carry some extra importance. At least this is the case for IM, and probably for U.S. students:

"Table 2 (javascript:void(0);) depicts the most important academic selection criteria across all specialties in rank order. Grades in required clerkships were the highest-ranked selection criteria compared with all other criteria (P < .002). To illustrate statistical differences that exist when comparing all other selection criteria, the column to the right indicates the ranks that are statistically different from the criteria listed in each row. For example, USMLE Step 1 scores were ranked significantly higher than USMLE Step 2 scores and all other criteria below; however, there was no statistical difference in the ranking of USMLE Step 1 score and grades in senior electives of specialty or the number of honors grades by program directors."

http://journals.lww.com/academicmedicine/Fulltext/2009/03000/Selection_Criteria_for_Residency__Results_of_a.24. aspx

[ym212]

Thanks for the input. The article that you posted definitely had some useful information. I just have to think about the advantage v. disadvantage of pushing surgery rotation back myself, since no plan is going to be perfect!

If anyone else has any other input from their experience, I'd appreciate it as well.