Thread: Any chance of matching in a residency in a speciality you dont rotate in?

that would be harder...one you will have no letters from the specialty...most programs will want an LoR form the Chair of the Dept (or at least a letter form an attending in the field) and two it raises the question...how do you even KNOW that you want to do the specialty if you have had NO exposure to the field.

my advice to do an elective, even if its only a 2 week one or while on a different rotation, go spend time with someone in PM&R during your off time.

it's been done before, i don't know specifically about pm&r but it's been done for other specialties. you just need the grades and usmle scores to be well above the average applicant.

Originally Posted by RussianJoo

it's been done before, i don't know specifically about pm&r but it's been done for other specialties. you just need the grades and usmle scores to be well above the average applicant.

This will work with PM&R, HOWEVER you will likely be relegated to undesirable programs. Virtually all of the PM&R programs to which I applied required at least 1 PM&R letter and one of the few that didn't which I interviewed early in October (before any PM&R evals/letters had been turned in) wanted to know why none of that was in my file at that point.

As Doc Rok said, you want a minimum of 1 letter and at least one rotation (you should really try at least for 4 weeks) and then at least you'll be competitive from that point of view with a number of programs. To be competitive at the top programs you'll need at least a couple of PM&R letters and ~8 weeks or so of rotations in the field with strong comments in addition to the requisite scores. Of course, if you have stellar scores that fact will somewhat make up for other deficiencies in your application.

Originally Posted by AngryBaby

This will work with PM&R, HOWEVER you will likely be relegated to undesirable programs. Virtually all of the PM&R programs to which I applied required at least 1 PM&R letter and one of the few that didn't which I interviewed early in October (before any PM&R evals/letters had been turned in) wanted to know why none of that was in my file at that point.

As Doc Rok said, you want a minimum of 1 letter and at least one rotation (you should really try at least for 4 weeks) and then at least you'll be competitive from that point of view with a number of programs. To be competitive at the top programs you'll need at least a couple of PM&R letters and ~8 weeks or so of rotations in the field with strong comments in addition to the requisite scores. Of course, if you have stellar scores that fact will somewhat make up for other deficiencies in your application.

and there you go OP, advice from someone getting ready to go into said specialty...

wow AB can't believe you are gonna be an intern in 2 days!...it seems like it was just yesterday you were a little angry baby stepping foot in gnd...

For PM&R you have to do elective(s) to get into good programs.

Thanks. Just wanted an idea.

Originally Posted by rokshana

and there you go OP, advice from someone getting ready to go into said specialty...

wow AB can't believe you are gonna be an intern in 2 days!...it seems like it was just yesterday you were a little angry baby stepping foot in gnd...

I know! Scary, huh.

First day went OK, I suppose, considering I felt like I had no idea what I was doing. First time using Epic made things take juuuust a bit longer than usual.