So every year after the 4th year medical students match, the various interest groups hold meetings where the 4th years give us advice on how to match into their field. I happened to be on call the night they had the Surgery Match Group at the hospital, so I got a chance to grab some free pizza and hear what was said. They gave a lot of great advice, but the ones that particularly stuck out to me was:
- This was actually said by the Surgery PD….he said that many programs have found that their good residents tended to be the same 4th year medical students who turned in their application early. They aren’t quite sure why there is a correlation between the two, but he believes that by turning your application in early its showing that you are responsible and on top of what you “need to do”, which is basically what residency is about.
- So of course when I heard this, I truly set in my heart that I was going to submit my application the first day possible. I really didn’t have the highest scores for medical school, but I did submit my AMCAS like 15 days after it opened and I believe that it helped me to get more interviews. The advice was also backed up by the PD of our Ortho department and some other 4th years who matched into ortho this year. They said that they submitted on the first day possible (which is Sept. 1) and that some schools gave them an interview invitation like 10 days later (this is basically before they even turned in all of their LORs). So it really does seem like a nice amount of programs offer interviews on a rolling basis. With my pretty average stats for ortho I hope that submitting on the first day possible might score me enough interviews to really be somewhat comfortable.
- Besides doing well on Step I, being AOA, and having 3rd year honors, the only other thing that they really advised was that we kill our away rotations. The basic advice here was the of course never be late to anything while on your away. Also they said that you need to always be energetic, but not annoying. Never make excuses for things that you didn’t do…just acknowledge your mistakes and do better next time. Always prepare for your cases, and definitely you need to be the first person at the hospital and the last person to leave. They also said that you should definitely try to take call, but not so much call that you can barely answer questions the next day. They also said to always hang out with the guys when they invite you, as they really want to know if they chill with you for the next 5 years.
- Something else that they said that kind of stuck out (which the surgery PD confirmed) was that you shouldn’t be too stressed about how much surgical knowledge that you possess, because to be honest many of these attendings have been practicing for years, so your knowledge really can’t impress them. With that being said, you of course need to know your anatomy very well, and always have a research paper ready to present on any interesting cases, but besides that anything more is extra.
- I am still a little scared about the anatomy part since I barely use it right now, and its hard to study it when I have all this pediatrics to study, but I hope I will be comfortable enough with my anatomy to answer most questions thrown my way.
- Be ready to talk about absolutely everything that you put on your CV. If they ask you about your research that you did your freshman year of college and you don’t know anything about it, then you might as well cross that program off because you probably won’t match there.
Overall it was pretty informative and I came away more excited about the whole application process. I think that if I can be on top of getting my application out early and interviewing well, then I should be able to match. Hopefully.
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