ERAS Match

Your Best Match: 2 Important Things to do Before Applying on ERAS

Your Best Match: 2 Important Things to do Before Applying on ERAS

, , , , , , , , , , 0

#1 Get Four Strong Letters of Recommendation

This is the most important thing to do before you apply to Electronic Residency Application Service (ERAS). You will need four strong letters of recommendation for residency.

How do you do this?

Think about your 3rd year medical student rotations and consider which two attendings that you worked with would write the strongest letter for you. This person will have to ideally vouch for your interpersonal skills, work ethic and medical knowledge.

Set up an appointment with the attendings to update them on your future medical goals and ask if they feel comfortable writing you a strong letter of recommendation. Your goal is to have two outstanding letters of recommendations from 3rd year of medical school.

Get two strong letters of recommendations from your 4th year specialty rotation. Some call this the “audition” month. During this month, you will have to come in early (before the residents) and stay late. Your goal is to function at an intern level and get along with everyone that you meet. Most importantly, be a team player by volunteering to help out the residents and attendings during the day. If an attending or resident asks you to help out, smile and say “yes.” Never complain. Keep a positive attitude. Be a team player.

At the end of the audition rotation, set up a meeting with the attending(s) for the rotation and ask for feedback. During the meeting, ask if the attending feels comfortable writing you a strong letter of recommendation.

Also if neither letter is from the program director, set up an office meeting to talk to the program director. During the meeting, ask the program director if they could get a composite feedback from all of the attendings and residents that worked with you for a letter of recommendation. The PD letter will be the most important letter of recommendation in your application.

If you are doing an away rotation, follow these recommendations.

Before your away rotation, email the away rotation program director (PD) if you can meet with them briefly because you are doing an away rotation at their institution. When you meet with the PD, ask if at the end of the rotation if the PD could ask all of the residents and attendings that you worked with for their feedback and use the feedback to write a composite letter of recommendation. The away rotation letter of recommendation can replace one of your 3rd year letters of recommendations.

#2 Start Exploring Residency Programs

You don’t want to wait until September before you start learning about residency programs. There is so much to learn about each program before you apply to them.

Where do you start?

Go to residency.doximity.com to access the Doximity Residency Navigator. It is a trusted resource done by over 275,000 peer nominations, ratings, and written reviews. Doximity residency navigator has data for over 4,000 programs spanning 28 specialties.

First select your specialty of interest. You can list the programs by academic reputation, research output, size of the program, percent subspecialize, and percent board certified. You can also sort by geographic area such as Northwest, South, Midwest, West, or All U.S. If you are interested in program characteristics you can even click large public hospital, VA hospital, Pediatric Hospital, or AOA Dual Accredited.

Next think about the cities of the programs that you want to join. Are you a city person? Do you like college towns? Will your spouse like bumper to bumper traffic? Will your spouse be bored in a small town? Residency navigator separates programs based on training environment such as urban or rural.

You can even learn about each residency program’s curriculum, percentage that pursue fellowships, and board pass rate on the Doximity Residency Navigator. Once you select a program. The program will list board pass rate, percentage of residents that pursue fellowship programs after residency training, and the program’s website link to learn more about their curriculum.

Lastly, once you find residency programs that you like, add these programs to your favorites list for tracking throughout the application season. You can even type personal notes about each program during the application season.

Once you have your letters of recommendations in hand, and know which kinds of programs are best suited to you, you’ll be ready to tackle ERAS and take the next step in your application process. Good luck!

Your Best Match: 3 Mistakes to Avoid when Applying for Residency

Your Best Match: 3 Mistakes to Avoid when Applying for Residency

, , , , , , , , 0

As someone that has helped select residents in residency programs, I have seen some common mistakes that can be avoided.

1. Not knowing where you stand

You need some brutal honesty here. Call the program director (PD) of your intended specialty at your home institution to set up a face to face meeting. Lay it all on the table. Tell this person your class rank, USMLE scores, and your interest in your specialty. The PD will eventually see your application so it is best to ask them for your competitiveness. Be very honest here. If you want to stay home let the PD know. On the other hand, don’t lie and say you are interested in staying if you are not interested in staying. You will need your home program’s blessing to match in your intended specialty.

If you are applying for a competitive specialty such as dermatology, urology, plastic surgery, orthopedic surgery, or radiation oncology ask the program director if you are very competitive, competitive, or not competitive. If you are not considered competitive ask the PD what you can do to increase your competitiveness. This could mean not applying to “top twenty” programs. There are many good training programs that are not considered “top twenty” because they don’t have a strong research focus during residency.

If you don’t know your true competitiveness you will spend a lot of money during your ERAS applications and not receive many invitations for interviews. Most programs screen applicants because they receive too many applications. The program coordinators can select “competitive applicants” using ERAS program filters to decrease the applications.

2. Not learning about feeder medical schools.

Learning about the feeder medical schools for the residency program that you are applying to is very important. Residency programs have medical school pipelines that they trust. This could be because previous residents from your medical school have done very well during their residency training. Or the program might favor regional medical schools during the interview and ranking process. The best way to learn the feeder programs is by Doximity Residency Navigator. Find the residency programs of interest and see if your medical school is a feeder program.

If you are not in the same geographic region as the residency program of interest, don’t have family ties near this program, or if your medical school is not considered a feeder medical school to this residency program you will find it very hard to get an interview for the competitive specialties.

3. Not thinking about life after Residency.

Now let’s say you know the specialty that you want to go into. Now what?

Many medical students don’t think about this, but where you go to train will have a huge impact on whether you have a chance to be an academic physician, fellowship match success, and where you will live after training.

For example, if you want to go into academics or considering subspecialist fellowship training after residency, try to get into the best program that you can get into for residency training. Residency Navigator is helpful for this. Apply to 1/3 above your competitiveness, 1/3 within your competitiveness, and 1/3 below your competitiveness. Try to go on 8–10 interviews for competitive specialties and 4–6 interviews for less competitive specialties.

What about private practice?

If you want to go into private practice after your training, go to Doximity Residency Navigator to find the programs that you want to apply and look at the program’s board pass rates. You will need to pass your specialty boards for hospital credentialing and patient insurance reimbursements when you work as an attending. If they have a low board pass rate, they might not be doing a good job in board preparation.

Also look at areas that you want to live after training. Most graduates tend to practice at the same state or a contiguous state after training. You can also use Residency Navigator to find the alumni cities for the residents that graduate from the residency programs. It is never too early to start thinking about life after residency training.

Your Best Match: Insider Tips from a Former Residency Selection Committee Member

Your Best Match: Insider Tips from a Former Residency Selection Committee Member

, , , , , , , , 0

July 2017!

What an exciting time in a physician’s timeline. Congratulations on putting in all of the hard work as a medical student. You will finally start learning in depth about the things in your specialty of choice.

Just imagine one year from now, you will be working in a hospital somewhere in the country as a resident physician.

Where will you be?

Everyone remembers their 4th year of medical school.

Why?

Uncertainty.

No other year of a person’s medical career is there so much ambiguity that you can’t control.

The reason is the ERAS Match.

The ERAS Match was designed to help medical students and residency program directors come up with the best “Match.”

One problem: there are so many programs! Where do you start?

There is not a trusted resource that you can gather as much information about each program to find the best “Match” for your specialty of interest.

Until now.

As a former member of residency selection committees, I have firsthand experience on what programs look for in an applicant. There were times when I reviewed ERAS applications and I often wondered:

“Why is this person applying to our program?”

“Is this genuine interest?”

“Are we 1 of 50+ random programs on the list?”

“High USMLE scores BUT…”

The truth is, many applications never make it to the program director’s desk because members of the residency selection committee like myself did not “endorse” an applicant after we reviewed their applications. Physicians are very busy people and they trust members of the residency committee. One person looks over an application, and if one person says “no” to an applicant, that person will get a rejection letter.

So what things can help you as an applicant?

Outstanding USMLE scores, Letters of Recommendations, and Medical Student Performance Evaluation (i.e. comprehensive evaluation of your performance during medical school) during your medical student career.

Other things that will help you are included in the updated Doximity Residency Navigator. In my next post, I discuss updated features such as residency program data, program map, favorites list, and people like you.

I will also give you an insider’s perspective on what the programs look for in an applicant to maximize your chances for an ideal Match on March 2018.