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Clerkship Elective Choices for Rad


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Hi all,

 

I'm a third year med student and I want to do radiology residency. My med school requires that I do 4 weeks of non-rad electives, so two 2 week rotations. I heard that respirology or neuro or ortho might be good choices to complement rad electives. I'm wondering if someone with more experience than I can comment on what the best choices would be.

 

Also, if I end up not doing a rad elective at a particular school, but I did a non-rad elective there like respirology, how much if at all would that help my chances of getting an interview there?

 

Thank you so much for any input!! :)

 

 

An anxious med student :/

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Hi there,

 

The options you have listed above are all good choices as they tend to be quite radiology-heavy.

 

As for completing an elective in a different discipline at a school at which you haven't completed a radiology elective, it's difficult to say how it will weigh in. Certainly, if the elective is with a faculty member who is pals with a key radiologist (and this happened to me at UBC) then I think it could certainly make a difference. However, at some other schools where they prefer applicants to have radiology elective experience, it might not be enough to snag you an interview. (I've heard this happen at McGill and Ottawa, for instance.)

 

Cheers,

Kirsteen

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Thanks Kirsteen!

 

I was also wondering what you think about doing a nuclear medicine elective vs resp/neuro/ortho. I don't know too much about nuclear medicine, (and in first year I actually thought they were the same thing! silly me hehe), but it seems similar to radiology...

 

Thanks again, Kirsteen - we med students can always count on you to give good advice ;)

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Thanks Kirsteen!

 

I was also wondering what you think about doing a nuclear medicine elective vs resp/neuro/ortho. I don't know too much about nuclear medicine, (and in first year I actually thought they were the same thing! silly me hehe), but it seems similar to radiology...

 

Thanks again, Kirsteen - we med students can always count on you to give good advice ;)

Hi again,

 

To be honest, I've never seen a medical student tackle an elective in nucs. It's not a bad idea, actually, given that very few students explore the option. You never know, you might end up liking it. Also, if you do end up enjoying nucs, having an elective in it would certainly make you more competitive (presumably) for the combined rads/nucs programs.

 

Cheers,

Kirsteen

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  • 3 weeks later...
Word of mouth on elective and interview:

 

from 2008: Calgary, McMaster, Ottawa and Memorial unofficially require the average applicant to do rad electives to get an interview.

 

Hope this will help you plan electives.

Hello,

 

Unofficially, the same has been said regarding UBC, UofA and McGill. (Actually, in a prior year, McGill has stated this to an applicant, outright.)

 

Cheers,

Kirsteen

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  • 2 months later...

I'm a little confused. Do you mean that these programs require an applicant to have done an elective at that centre to get an interview, or just that they require applicants to have done some rads electives at all?

 

Wouldn't most, if not all, programs require an applicant to have done at least a couple electives in that field to gain interview consideration? Are there programs that will give you interviews and match consideration without having done any electives in that field?

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The above posts are referring to the importance of doing a radiology elective at a particular program to get an interview at that centre. Times do change and there are exceptions to every anecdote (if a program has a written policy however, that's most helpful) so for reasons I think I've posted earlier, I think that it's best to do your electives where you are most interested in going - either to rule in and get yourself known or rule out and save yourself from a poor ranking decision. Yes, pretty much every applicant under consideration has done electives in the field. I haven't met anyone who did less than two.

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Yes, pretty much every applicant under consideration has done electives in the field. I haven't met anyone who did less than two.

Hi there,

 

Yes, you're correct, radiology electives are very important for applying to rads residency programs since, for one, many programs require a reference letter from a radiologist. One of the easiest ways to obtain those is to do an elective in radiology.

 

As for not meeting anyone who did less than two, you now have. I managed to match to radiology with all my electives in general surgery, i.e., not one elective in radiology. So in that regard, there are exceptions to soft rules.

 

Cheers,

Kirsteen

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Yes, of course there are exceptions to the importance of electives in general as well as to the necessity of an elective to receive an interview at any school. If I recall correctly though Kirsteen, you had made a special effort to visit radiology programs and set up meetings with the program director (which could well accomplish more than a typical elective if one does not have a chance to get to know the staff well) :) When considering the file of an applicant who is unknown to the committee, I do think it would appear odd not to see any electives in the chosen field - unless of course there are special circumstances and other evidence of interest in the field, which is the reasoning behind the criterion.

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Yes, of course there are exceptions to the importance of electives in general as well as to the necessity of an elective to receive an interview at any school. If I recall correctly though Kirsteen, you had made a special effort to visit radiology programs and set up meetings with the program director (which could well accomplish more than a typical elective if one does not have a chance to get to know the staff well) :) When considering the file of an applicant who is unknown to the committee, I do think it would appear odd not to see any electives in the chosen field - unless of course there are special circumstances and other evidence of interest in the field, which is the reasoning behind the criterion.

Hello,

 

Yes, I did make special efforts to get to know the programs since I didn't do any electives at any of them. However, one of the items I learned from a number of rads faculty I met with to talk about my change of career plans to rads is that it's not uncommon for medical students to change their minds late in the application process and to successfully apply to programs to which they had little or no elective exposure. There are obviously different ways of ensuring that you gain some exposure to be able to convince the application review panels that you're genuinely interested in their program.

 

Cheers,

Kirsteen

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  • 3 weeks later...

Doing electives in rad is only one way to show interest.

 

Other avenues includes research, case reports, shadowing, attending conferences, join a local student radiology club, flying out to meet the rad programs ... etc.

 

In the end it's the strength of your application that counts - far more than the specific electives. Good grades combined with strong clinical eval comments in the MSPR and reference letters will lead to interview invites even in places you've never visited for electives.

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what exactly do you mean by good grades? do you mean no fails...I realize that things can show up in evaluations but apart from that its just P/F.

 

Even if your transcript is P/F, your dean's letter contains a coded statement which gives your approximate ranking in your class.

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anybody know if they have these "coded statements" at U of A? i just don't know how relevant they'd be since 80% of people hover around the class average.

 

I've never heard of any such thing. I'm FAIRLY (but not completely) confident that it doesn't exist, at least for UofA. I saw my dean's letter, and the only numbers on it were my clerkship evals. Presumably, if one were to leaf through enough applicants from a given class they would get an idea of how that applicant stands in relation to his peers.

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I've never heard of any such thing. I'm FAIRLY (but not completely) confident that it doesn't exist, at least for UofA. I saw my dean's letter, and the only numbers on it were my clerkship evals. Presumably, if one were to leaf through enough applicants from a given class they would get an idea of how that applicant stands in relation to his peers.

Hi there,

 

UofT, at one point, did include class rank as part of the Dean's letter. I'm not sure that they do this any longer.

 

Cheers,

Kirsteen

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In the end it's the strength of your application that counts - far more than the specific electives. Good grades combined with strong clinical eval comments in the MSPR and reference letters will lead to interview invites even in places you've never visited for electives.

Hello,

 

I disagree. There are certainly some centres that will not grant an interview if the candidate is unknown to them. In terms of electives, I know a number of Program Directors who attribute the greatest proportion of the application assessment on elective choice and performance within that elective.

 

Cheers,

Kirsteen

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Your academic performance can be assessed in many different ways. Even if the school only has pass/fail, strong student stand out in the form of academic awards, clinical evals comments on the MSPR, the choice of words and tone in the deans letter etc.

 

How do you explain the many applicants on CaRMS who receive more than 10 radiology interviews with only a few electives in the field? Or even those with no electives at all in radiology but got several intervews? Only if their application is otherwise strong. Obviously given the move towards diverse elective experience in med schools around the country, an applicant may only have max of 4 weeks in radiology.

 

Programs directors know that, and therefore won't penalize you if you haven't done an elective at their center. In fact many state that on the CaRMS website.

 

The exception, perhaps, is that if you are a borderline applicant, doing an elective at particular center can push you through into the interview pile. And even then 8 times out of 10, I'll bet programs are more likely to interview a strong applicant who has never been to the site, over a borderline or weak applicant who did an elective there.

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Programs directors know that, and therefore won't penalize you if you haven't done an elective at their center. In fact many state that on the CaRMS website.

Hello,

 

Many, but not all state this on the CaRMS websites and I know of at least one Rads Program Director who will not grant an interview to an applicant if they are not known to the program.

 

Cheers,

Kirsteen

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Hello,

 

Many, but not all state this on the CaRMS websites and I know of at least one Rads Program Director who will not grant an interview to an applicant if they are not known to the program.

 

Cheers,

Kirsteen

 

That'll be great info to share with the keen rad hopefuls on this board.

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