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Pediatrics - How to be competitive???


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On 10/20/2018 at 6:01 PM, Peds123 said:

I am a MS3 and  I recently became interested in Pediatric Oncology. What do I need to do to be competitive?

- what kind of research do I need to do?

- what about electives? 

- what about ECs?

Am I too late in the game ?

Don't worry about the oncology part right now.

Any research is better than no research, first author papers are better than 8th author on a poster, pediatric research might help but a lot of people decide on pedatrics late so not as important, quality of research helps, etc. Many people match peds with minimal research, its not a historically research focused residency, but some schools care more than others and things are getting more competitive so it probably helps to have something.

Do electives in pediatrics. What in pediatrics specifically is less important, but I would try and get a little variety in both geography and subspecialty. Doing an elective at a school helps with that program but you can match to programs without doing electives there. You want electives were you can get good letters. Don't discount electives at your home school, the home school letter is important.

ECs are less important than other stuff, really only looking for well rounded. Any service/volunteering is good but not super valuable. Being the chair of the pediatrics interest group, etc, gives you something to talk about at interviews but not all that helpful on paper. Having experience with children is probably good :)

You are not too late, unless you're at Mac or Calgary and even then its doable but more difficult.

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I've been told Peds frown upon people doing electives in multiple specialties. For example, I'm really interested in Radiation Oncology, but Medical Oncology and Pediatric Oncology I find interesting as well. I was told that because I'm not doing the majority of my electives in Pediatrics, my odds of matching are super low. From what you've heard is this true?

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54 minutes ago, f011235813 said:

I've been told Peds frown upon people doing electives in multiple specialties. For example, I'm really interested in Radiation Oncology, but Medical Oncology and Pediatric Oncology I find interesting as well. I was told that because I'm not doing the majority of my electives in Pediatrics, my odds of matching are super low. From what you've heard is this true?

 

 

 

 

11 hours ago, bearded frog said:

Don't worry about the oncology part right now.

Any research is better than no research, first author papers are better than 8th author on a poster, pediatric research might help but a lot of people decide on pedatrics late so not as important, quality of research helps, etc. Many people match peds with minimal research, its not a historically research focused residency, but some schools care more than others and things are getting more competitive so it probably helps to have something.

Do electives in pediatrics. What in pediatrics specifically is less important, but I would try and get a little variety in both geography and subspecialty. Doing an elective at a school helps with that program but you can match to programs without doing electives there. You want electives were you can get good letters. Don't discount electives at your home school, the home school letter is important.

ECs are less important than other stuff, really only looking for well rounded. Any service/volunteering is good but not super valuable. Being the chair of the pediatrics interest group, etc, gives you something to talk about at interviews but not all that helpful on paper. Having experience with children is probably good :)

You are not too late, unless you're at Mac or Calgary and even then its doable but more difficult.

 

Thank you for your very thorough reply :)

I think in peds you need to do most of ur electives in it, but I personally know a girl who did all her electives in peds but still went unmatched. I was wondering what aspects of someone’s application leads someone to go unmatched??... she eventually matched to FM in 2nd iteration

 

How many research projects did you have, bearded frog?

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10 hours ago, f011235813 said:

I've been told Peds frown upon people doing electives in multiple specialties. For example, I'm really interested in Radiation Oncology, but Medical Oncology and Pediatric Oncology I find interesting as well. I was told that because I'm not doing the majority of my electives in Pediatrics, my odds of matching are super low. From what you've heard is this true?

There's no right answer here. As the poster said above even with all peds electives you can still be unmatched, and people match with only doing a couple. If you've done a peds elective at a school and done radonc and adult oncology electives too than its fine to say that you were initially trying different stuff out to make sure that peds was right for you and now that you've had a broad range of experiences than you're sure peds is right for you, that's totally ok.

If you have 9 derm electives and one peds elective on the other hand then that might be slightly less convincing...

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9 hours ago, Peds123 said:

How many research projects did you have, bearded frog?

My personal experience doesn't matter, there was a big range of people who matched peds in my class, some I don't know if they did any research, to undergrad posters, to master's degrees in pediatric research. Unless you review everyone's CV its hard to get an idea of what those around you have done, and its really the complete picture as opposed to N number of research projects.

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