Parallel planning

[dooogs]

I know that many people parallel plan but is it possible to tailor your CV to two specialities? Is there just one CV that goes to both specialities? I worry that it will be obvious that I would be parallel planning

[Bambi]

It is possible to tailor your Motivational Letters to each specialty. I applied to 2 competitive specialties and FM, and got into one of the specialties. The specialty that accepted me knew of my interest in the other. This was irrelevant. They were looking for a good fit that I was deemed to be.

[dooogs]

8 minutes ago, Bambi said:

It is possible to tailor your Motivational Letters to each specialty. I applied to 2 competitive specialties and FM, and got into one of the specialties. The specialty that accepted me knew of my interest in the other. This was irrelevant. They were looking for a good fit that I was deemed to be.

Do you think you were sort of unusually lucky ? Or is parallel planning not seen too bad.... I've heard from a staff of a small surgical speciality they didnt even rank a person that they thought was parallel planning

[Bambi]

I was lucky, but not unusually so. People keep their options open and so the story goes, you were considering both but in the end, opted for this field because ........

Regarding your last sentence, I wouldn't worry. 

[zxcccxz]

4 hours ago, dooogs said:

I know that many people parallel plan but is it possible to tailor your CV to two specialities? Is there just one CV that goes to both specialities? I worry that it will be obvious that I would be parallel planning

It's certainly possible and most people do it. Med schools highly encourage it to keep the unmatched rate low.

But ultimately, how feasible it is depends on what your interests are. If you are applying to IM and FM, its quite easy to have competitive applications for both. If your two interests are opthalmology and dermatology, you basically risk not matching to either by trying to make a half-assed effort for both. Ideally, you want to pick two specialties that have a lot of overlap, so for example, when you do research, whatever productivity you have can be applied to both (e.g., research on acute airway management can be applied to both anaesthesiology and emergency medicine). It would also allow you to say in your personal letters/interviews for speciality 1 that specialty 2 is your backup and in your personal letters/interviews for speciality 2 that speciality 1 was your backup; rather than clearly backing up with a speciality and then having a tough time selling yourself if you don't match to your first choice.