ledzeppedagain
Forum Newbie
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Hello! I have just joined the forum. Im a medical graduate from India, currently pursuing research(three years) in Otoneurology at Oxford University on a Rhodes scholarship. Im currently planning on giving the USMLE to be eligible for the 2009 match. Although I have excellent undergraduate scores and won prizes in several subjects, I have been told that a three year gap is going to pull me down hard while applying to residency; its a research pathway in internal medicine that I am keen to apply to having had both teaching and research experience these years. Could anyone kindly advice?
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| bioguy
Forum Guru
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three years of sitting idle will pull anyone down. but you are adding to your qualification - with your research. and adding research experience to medicine is a gem of a qualification. i guarantee you 100% that you are in an excellent position now. go ahead and shoot it.
___________________
ARE YOU A ROCKNROLLA?
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| 4residency
Forum Newbie
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Posts: 26
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Hi!
I think you are in a good position and you should go ahead take your steps and apply for 2009 match.
My story was similar to yours. I recognized that my strenght was research (3 years as postdoc, 1 year as faculty, 3 international awards, 1 post doc grant and a reasonable number of publications). I only did 2 months observership in IM and I wasn't an straight-99.
So my option was to sell my-self as a good candidate for the research pathway and I compited with the MD/PhD for a position. Is not easy, your alternatives are limited to university programs that have the research pathway, so it definitely exclude the community programs. Because in the research pathway you are not only after IM, but your fellowship as well, the programs you apply to, should have faculties interested in your area of research.
In my case, my area of research was hypertension, so I targeted IM programs with strongest cardiovascular/clin pharm fellowships. Furthermore, if you go with the mass of applicants for IM, your application will get lost, so then is when your mentors plays a big role. In research, everybody know each other. They can be your reviewers, you can be theirs. So it is important to have contacts (researchers) inside the programs you have selected, to talk for you to the PD, to let them know that a strong applicant for the research program is coming. -This area is not appealing for AMG, cause in research you don't make too much money. So your competitions are mostly american MD/PhD (but they are so busy taking courses that the amount of publications is very low).
Then during the interview, everything is reduced to "marketing" You sell your-self as academic person. Avoid phrases like "I realized that being a clinician and not researcher is my goal ". You have to say things like " I want to be the very best clinician-scientist". Talk with passion about your research and spent time writing your statement of purpose.
I did everything I wrote here and it went very well for me. I am the only foreign who matched this year in my first choice a university-based program in the research pathway. They will even allow me to do 2 years of IM only and they will count my postdoc experience as part of the 3 years of research.
Good luck.
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