Possible to back up surgical specialty with IM or FM?

[DeeplySuperficial]

Given how competitive some surgical residencies are (Ophtho, Plastics, ENT, Urology etc.) is it possible to strongly back up a surgical specialty with IM or FM? If so, how does one go about doing this?

Like how would one cater their CV to both a surgical specialty and one of IM/FM and how does one spin their story at both interviews?

Thanks.

[blah1234]

I've had friends do both. But, I graduated back when IM/FM was considerably less competitive. I think if you have 1 FM elective you should be able to spin some sort of story about finding interest with a good preceptor, but you might have to go to an unpopular program. I think IM has gotten competitive enough where you might need a more compelling story. 

[Exergy]

Given the 8 week elective cap, would 8 weeks in a surgical specialty and then 6-8 weeks in IM work out for both?

[Edict]

On 12/13/2018 at 12:38 AM, Exergy said:

Given the 8 week elective cap, would 8 weeks in a surgical specialty and then 6-8 weeks in IM work out for both?

Yeah, it would. You might get some questions at interviews about it, but most likely they won't. Depending on which location you want, you may have a hard time getting more competitive locations though especially in your backup. 

Something to do would be to do an elective or two in the ICU, which is relevant to both surgery and medicine. Although, if you want to backup seriously, don't do more than 1 ICU elective, it would look too surgical otherwise. 

[Bambi]

On 12/12/2018 at 11:29 PM, DeeplySuperficial said:

Given how competitive some surgical residencies are (Ophtho, Plastics, ENT, Urology etc.) is it possible to strongly back up a surgical specialty with IM or FM? If so, how does one go about doing this?

Like how would one cater their CV to both a surgical specialty and one of IM/FM and how does one spin their story at both interviews?

Thanks.

Same CV, Motivational Letter to each has a different spin.

I applied to FM and 2 specialties, one being a surgical specialty, the other having some surgery involved. I was essentially an outsider in the competitive surgical specialty,  I was a hard and enthusiastic worker, always stayed late helping the resident. Both the resident and attending liked me, thought I would be a good fit. The resident was on the Interviewing Panel of 6, did not need to advocate for me as all 6, most of whom I did not know, selected me after a 10 minute interview,  although the attending did give me a great LOR.  Not one gunner was selected as they did not have the essential soft skills. Fast forward to today, my competitive specialty for one year suddenly became less competitive, i.e., more spots available and considerably less applicants. Every year is different. I got my interviews for all 3 fields, would have been happy in any of the 3, fate, luck, whatever made the decision for me. 

Interestingly, it was not necessary to spin any story at the interview. I was just my authentic self at the interviews. For this specialty, I volunteered in a verbal statement that I would definitely take a fellow but did not know which subspecialty, and they liked that. The interview was fairly simple, no difficult questions, just trying to get to know me. Just be yourself.

[HailmadeMode]

On 12/12/2018 at 11:29 PM, DeeplySuperficial said:

Given how competitive some surgical residencies are (Ophtho, Plastics, ENT, Urology etc.) is it possible to strongly back up a surgical specialty with IM or FM? If so, how does one go about doing this?

Like how would one cater their CV to both a surgical specialty and one of IM/FM and how does one spin their story at both interviews?

Thanks.

Late response but maybe it'll help someone in the new cycle: 

I applied to one of your listed competitive surgical specialty and FM, and I do not regret it! You have to do a lot of self-reflection on this. I was happy to do rural FM, but wanted the competitive specialty more. I explained this to my preceptors on FM, and they were very supportive. I got invited to all FM programs I applied to. Most had a closed-file policy so the interviews went comfortably as well. 

This also helped settle my anxiety a bit during my specialty interviews. When you receive many nods from both programs, you start feeling a bit more confident that you'll likely match SOMEWHERE, so it helped me relax a bit during the tour. 

back up, but be honest about it to your backup specialty. You will sleep better at night and folks will respect your honesty. 

Best of luck