![]() If you get into a school with pass/fail clinicals, it makes a huge difference in your quality of life and I would say you should probably go for that school.įor the vast majority of schools, rotations are not pass/fail and graded on some kind of scale that goes honors/high pass/pass/fail. Usually, these are top-ranked schools and their students don't need the boost that good clinical grades would give. Many admissions departments don't really advertise that much information about the grading in the third year rotations unless if they're pass/fail. I'm not saying it's a guarantee that your experience will be the same, but it will be an uphill battle for sure. ![]() If you want to see what it might be like to apply to a competitive surgical specialty from a medical school without a robust home program, see this post. This letter will include a statement along the lines of "I will be ranking /u/christino_ very high/#1/top 5 on our program's list," which is laughable to include if your letter writer isn't associated with a residency program. Why would a residency program director (PD) trust the word of some attending physician who hasn't even seen a resident in the past 10 years, when reading their recommendation letter alleging why you'd make such a great resident? On the other hand, a strong letter from your home program's PD is going to be much more impactful. Applying to residency is much more connection-heavy than applying to medical school, and *who* is writing your letters is much more important. The vast majority of people applying to specialties without a home program take 1 or more additional research year(s) to get to know faculty at some other residency program, and/or do multiple away rotations at other programs in MS4 year and hope that they get to know you well enough in those 4 weeks to write you a good letter. If you know your home program faculty well, some of them may also be able to make some phone calls to their friends at other programs, and encourage them to rank you higher.Īdditionally, it's much harder to get recommendation letters without a home program. ![]() Having that one program where you feel much more confident about matching at, is a huge boon for your sanity when it comes to your fourth year of medical school and match season. When it comes time to ranking applicants for the match, many programs will also favor applicants from the affiliated medical school. You will likely have done research with them, gone to conferences with them, and just in general have gotten to know the department very well. In fact, you are by far most likely to match at your home program compared to any other program. By the time you apply to residency you are "known quantity," they are familiar with you, and know how good of an applicant you are. The most obvious one is that you will likely have rotated through those departments and have gotten to know the residents and attendings from that program. There are many benefits to having a home residency program. In plastic surgery, there is one residency program split between those three Harvard hospitals, so they have that one home program. For example, each of those three Harvard hospitals runs their own radiology residency, so a Harvard medical student would have three home programs in radiology. Depending on the specialty, you might have multiple home programs. These hospitals will have their own residency programs. So first off what is a home residency program? For example, medical students at Harvard rotate through multiple hospitals such as Massachusetts General Hospital, Brigham and Women's Hospital, and Beth Israel Deaconess. The research that med students do also tends to be resident-driven (see the section on "Research in medical school" below), so having a home program helps in that regard as well. If you're interested in anything remotely competitive, I would say this should be your #1 priority besides financial aid and personal factors like location/proximity to support. Just to put it out there, things like financial aid, proximity to friends/support systems, and location matter a lot, but you probably knew that already.ġ) Does your medical school have a home residency program in the specialty/specialties you're considering? (Update: matched plastics somewhere!!!!) In the meantime, looking back on the past 3.5 years, here are some thoughts on lesser-known things that matter a lot for your medical school experience: What's up r/premed, I'm an MS4 at a mid-tier USMD school and currently can't sleep since I applied to a competitive surgical subspecialty and find out whether I match in 5 hours.
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