I’m applying EM. During medical school, I got into firearms and target shooting. Would I be stupid to add this as a hobby in my ResidencyCAS app, or would programs think I’m crazy?

Note: I haven’t competed in a USPSA event, but I want to. I go to the local range and have fun with the wife and the bros.

Edit: I will NOT be putting this on my app. Thank you guys for saving my app. Also, I'm left-leaning.

Long story short I had to delay my Comlex exam by a month so I missed my first rotation. Ended up passing just fine so now on rotations BUT my school just emailed me YESTERDAY and told me my loans won’t be grandfathered so I need to take out private loans??? Where TH was the warning before I decided to delay my exam??? Is this legal???
I emailed the Dean and he said I need to work with financial aid lmao. I had a meeting with financial aid and they said they can give emergency fund for now until I figure something out. I do NOT have any co-signers and am immigrants as well as my parents and they do not have the credit history required to get these loans. Yes I applied to 4 now and nothing!!!

Idk wtf to do atp. This whole process has been a joke and nobody is taking accountability.

I’m a 3rd year and 7 months postpartum and just feel like my brain is operating a lot slower than most of my classmates. Those who have had kids during med school/residency, how did you deal with this? And is this something you experienced too?? Please tell me I’m not alone. 🥲🫠

Off to a great start

Back in M1, I was sick and missed a medical procedures class (one of those ones where they teach you to suture or whatever else).

I failed to get a doc’s note in time, because I was quite sick, so I had to remediate the course, which I did so successfully. Literally just showed up that next week & did the medical procedure. On my MSPE it says I successfully remediated the course.

I’m pretty annoyed about this because my MSPE is otherwise fine. I never remediated any actual preclinical courses, never failed any exams, and have very positive comments from all my preceptors from my M3 clinicals.

I’m applying IM. Is this a big deal? Or will PD’s not care?

Thanks yall

Just started rotations, starting in IM, and its been so fucking emotional.

Day 1 see the doc casually tell someone theyll never go home again.

Day 2 see an acutely decompensated homeless person who ran out of meds. Attending informs me the social worker thinks they sold them for drug money.

Now week 5, seen multiple people die, and got to watch a 12 year old boy say goodbye to his disoriented 30 yo mom with metastatic breast cancer. And I fell apart. Had to step out of the room

Idk I might be taking it all too personally but Im honestly kind of worried I won't be able to hang on if it's going to keep bothering me so much. I dont want to like, not feel bad for people suffering, but I know I need to at least be able to keep it together day-to-day...

So, what the title says, how do you cope with the sad stuff, and how do you supress it for later?

I’m a US DO MS4 applying to Internal Medicine and I’m confused about the standardized letter requirement.

My school advisor told me that I need a standardized letter for IM. I already have a few narrative LORs, as well as an IM Chair Letter from my medical school that they told us to request as narrative. 

I also asked an IM attending I worked with if she would write me a letter, and she agreed but asked me to draft the letter and send it to her for review/editing.

This is where I’m confused. When I look at ERAS, I see some IM programs specifically listing “specialty-specific standardized letter” as required or preferred. Am I correct that this refers to the AAIM Internal Medicine Structured Evaluative Letter (IM-SEL)?

If so, what exactly am I supposed to draft for my attending? Is the IM-SEL something the attending completes using the standardized template, rather than a traditional narrative letter that I draft myself?

I’m also wondering whether my IM Chair Letter already fulfills what my advisor meant by a standardized/SEL letter, or if I need a separate IM-SEL.

Would really appreciate clarification from anyone who has gone through this or understands the current ERAS process. I feel like I’m overthinking this ERAS checkbox 😅

I know its right up there with plastics, neurosurgery, etc. in terms of the data on charting outcomes, but anecdotally I've heard that unlike with e.g. plastics when an applicant dual applies they don't necessarily rank all CT i6 programs above all GS programs if that makes sense?

What I mean is if a plastics applicant is dual applying plastics and GS, they'll rank basically all plastics programs above all GS programs in their final rank list with very little exception vs I've heard that for applicants dual applying CT i6 and GS their final rank list might have their top CT i6 programs in the first say 3 ranks but then top GS programs known for having strong 7+3 pathways or strong CT exposure/fellowship match might be in ranks 4-8 before the rest of the CT i6 programs. Would that mean that if an applicant is not targeting the top programs in CT i6 that it might be a bit more attainable?

Whats’s everyone else’s experience like for 3rd year rotations? I’m just following around these attendings like a silly donkey.

Just like a subi and half in and I’m beat the traveling and having to be on everyday is getting to me. whose with me?

US DO, Level 1 fail first attempt, pass 2nd, Level 2 430. Applying IM, community, NJ/NY. Really just hoping to get into anywhere at all and wondering if this is possible?

I’m 9 months into my first year and i’m repeating which isn’t important here. I am someone who is generally outgoing, however, I do have AuDHD which makes friendships hard already.

I’ve done everything from going out to society/club events, going out to libraries/cafes to study in hopes to talk to ppl or even asking ppl to study or general small talk which doesnt get either of us anywhere (i think small talk is stupid but to each their own). Alongside this, I’m also a part of a society/club executive role but it’s for a smaller club.

The people I do talk with, they don’t invite me to things and are generally kind to me, but they aren’t ppl I’d sacrifice my time for, nor would I ask if they could come to the hospital if need be. I do have a friend in my class from last year who is now in second year, who will be leaving for her clinical years so we won’t have as much time to work.

I feel like a lot of the people I’ve talked to are either fake, don’t care or just forget (the last bit I can understand but it still hurts).

I went from someone who was really extroverted in high school and last year, to the exact opposite since my friend group from last year also broke apart when all my friends (minus the close friend) found out I was repeating the year.

My psych has helped, but there’s only sm therapy and my psych CAN do. I’ve done practically everything but I feel like a broken individual and I don’t like it. I’m not trying to project that everyone’s evil/a bad person, but if ppl say they’re my friend, I’d appreciate SOME level of transparency of how they feel in regards to a friendship rather than radio silence or leaving me on read?

So I am about to start my internship year and I have already graduated med school (MBBS), but I still struggle in converting signs and symptoms into a diagnosis. When I listen to podcasts like the clinical problem solvers, I always get stumped. When cases are not clear cut, it's really hard for me to organize the clinical picture constellation into a respectable differential diagnosis. How does one get better at that?

[!!!] I already have UW but I'm hoping to do its questions a few days before my exam, so the content is freshest in my mind. My school offers CAS exams.

I have both Bootcamp and BnB, but have more of an inclination towards BnB since the lectures are the most similar to my in-house material. However, upperclassmen have told me that the BnB Qbank is very convoluted. Would I be better off doing Bootcamp's instead?

Realistically I just need to find something to help me solidify the information into my head. I bombed my first exam (M1) so I'm trying to find another approach towards my studying.

So, which of the two resources has more representative questions?

Has anyone received Grad PLUS disbursements from their schools yet? With all the bureaucratic red tape from the BBB, just wondering if there’s any progress or luck… 😮‍💨

Hey all,

Just trying to finalize a school list and would love to get a better calibration of what my reaches and targets are.

Mid tier school, northeast. Trying to mostly stay in New England, Midatlantic area with possible PNW/mountain if that's an option

Step 1 P

Step 2 259

Clinical grades: Honors in Gen surg and 2 other rotations, high pass in everything else and pass in one. Ranked lowest tier in my class rankings (we do thirds)

Have some leadership in clubs I care about, have 6 pubs (none first author) and are kinda surgical or basic science (only one IM). A few posters from undergrad. Have one patented invention from medical school.

Thank you

Hi! I am an EM applicant and HPSP recipient looking for help with my program list. I've also rotated and interviewed at the offered military locations, and I believe military only covers the cost of 18 civilian applications. Trying to prioritize location and military friendliness. How does the attached photo look?

Stats:

USMD, 260 Step 2 / 4H, 3HP clerkships, 2H/1HP EM rotations, 3rd quartile, No AOA, not a golden human

3 peer-reviewed Abstracts / 0 journal publications

2 poster presentations, 1 winning a second place at a national surgical subspecialty conference

Leadership, advocacy, and volunteering heavy application

Worked various service jobs and as an ER Tech before med school

Grew up in poverty in the Deep South, spent 2 years living in Austin, at a low-mid tier MD program on the East coast.

Kinda neurotic question. I noticed when grouping my research items on ERAS into scholarly collections, it removes the items from the list of their "type" of research, i.e. if I include a pub in a scholarly collection, my number of pubs in the "Journal Article (peer-reviewed)" category goes down. I know the pub is still listed, but it's less explicitly visible when in a scholarly collection.

Just a little paranoid because I'm sure programs are still considering it a numbers game to some extent, and at quick glance it looks like my number of pubs/presentations/etc is less than the actual number. Not sure if there's any way around this or if programs will be able to sort their view to accommodate this (don't see anything in the "preview as program" section that resolves this). Have other people had this issue too / is there any way around it? Thanks!

Idk what cooks me harder waking up exhausted and opening up Uworld to see my progress or opening up a pack of Pokemon Cards

Has anyone used Sketchy for their M3 / M4? Used Sketchy micro, pharm and path + Pepper decks for Step 1 and was a huge fan, but consensus seems to be against using it for Step 2 / internal med / surgery shelfs (plus the price 🫠)

Any advice / experiences much appreciated ✌️

Sort of a vent but also sort of advice. I’ve had so many new M1s and M2s from my school asking for advice or help with XYZ for different orgs, classes, or research, and I can’t tell you how often I send a long email with multiple paragraphs and get no response in return. I get that people are busy, but taking 60 seconds to write a response to say thank you is such an easy thing to do and makes you stand out as a kinder person on rotations and in general.

M1 at T40 USMD here. My school doesn't have a home plastics residency, though it does have an affiliated hospital with one that usually takes like one student from my program per year. If I get heavily involved with research early on, score well on step 2, have good service and leadership experiences, etc. what are my chances honestly? I feel like I'm generally pretty likeable and good at school. I just landed a research position that I think is very respectable with a PI who publishes often. Would I still need to take a research year to be safe? What academic benchmarks should I be shooting for?