Recent content by DoctaJay

You didn't come on here to confirm whether you had an uphill battle. I think you should plan to take 1-2 years off between your 3rd and 4th years if possible to do research with an allopathic program if your desire is to match allopathic. I am not familier with the scores needed for osteopathic...

Congrats!

You have to know who you are and what you need. I went to an all black elementary school, and almost all black high school, and then an HBCU college. It was at the HBCU college I truly gained my "family feel" and received so much support. I almost went to Howard or Meharry for med school, but I...

That would be silly. Its passing your boards that matter and the correlation from OITE to board passing rate is poor or fair at best. To answer the OP's question, being academic is much more about who YOU ARE and not where you trained. I came into residency with no publications and left with...

This is my first post on SDN in probably 5 years, but I'll take a stab that this. You kneed to know what part of your application was deficient: 1. If your step 1 scores were not good, and you have minimal research then it is an uphill battle likely requiring you spending an entire year or more...

The Step1 score primarily gets you through the screening process. At our program, our coordinator is given a certain criteria (step 1 score, IMG status, etc) and she takes the list of 800 applicants or so that applied and gets them down to about 100 or so. This means that your application won't...

It is not required. It certainly helps you get a butt load of interviews, but not required. The full package of a competitive step 1 240+, good letters, solid research, and a strong away rotation can get you into most top 20 programs.

I went to a majority white med school, but happened to be part of the largest group of blacks they ever accepted, 15 people. Out of all of us 3 were male and I'm sure this situation is played out everyone. I came into medschool married but was the minority in that respect out of all 15 people...

I'm an LLU SOM 2011 alum. Congrats for all that were accepted. Any questions, just let me know.

You wil never be able to change people's perception of you. Some, even when you are in residency will think that you are inherently lazy or less intelligent because of your color. All you can do is your best; continue your hard work; continue to be easy to get along with and your work will speak...

I majored in biology, but if I did it again, I would have done computer science or even something in the arts. I loved biology and did well in it, but when I got to medical school I met folks who were much smarter than me who majored in Film while in college or english, etc. Overall, do what you...

I agree with shiz knot. Medicare funding would be his absolute impediment. Now if you are outside funding like from the army, it may entice places, but I wouldn't join just for that.

There is an extremely strong chance that the supreme court will strike down AA later this year. When that occurs, either of 2 things will occur 1)Medical schools will wipe their hands clean and only accept based on numbers, ivy league status, parent's name, LORs, etc 2)Medical schools will...

good advice above, also you don't necessarily have to let the PDs know that you rotated in another field. When they ask you where you rotated, tell them the ortho places you went and vice versa. Ideally it would be better to do all rotations in the field as I believe you have a 60-80% chance of...

Yes when comparing to similar applicants some cali programs (ucla or usc I think) would prefer you to have your step 2 in as compared to not, but for the vast majority of programs its still not a requirement. Still though, my advice hasn't changed...if you did well on step 1, you will most...