DO MSIII seeking opinion on west coast IM residency with heme onc program

[liluoke]

Dear fellow SDNers,

Thank you in advance for reading this, and merry christmas!

I am a 3rd year medical student at a california osteopathic school and very serious about internal medicine and HemeOnc fellowship. I'm looking at internal medicine positions in California (already identified which ones have heme onc fellowships), and I would like to seek some advice. First some relevant stats:

USMLE Step 1: 252, Step 2 pending
COMLEX 1: 674, COMLEX 2 pending (but only thinking of applying to ACGME so this number doesn't really matter unfortunately)
Honors in IM rotation (and OB-GYN so far).
High rank in class (definitely top 10%, but don't know what exactly)
Published an abstract in JAOA concerning an epidemiological study on breast cancer patients in Taiwan; placed 2nd place in an OMED competition for foreign research abstracts
Did some basic science research about the HERG potassium channel in oocytes, no publish
Was active in planning bone marrow drives with the AADP and be the match 1st and 2nd year, signing up ~150+ pts (of course with help)
Writing a case report on myelofibrosis which I'll try to publish in the near future
Getting a letter of recommendation from a DO heme onc who I worked closely with (and with the case report with)

My question is this: what do you think is the best IM program fit for me to on the grounds of
1) Best Heme Onc Fellowship available (haven't read much on which californian heme onc programs are better?)
2) Best IM experience for a DO with high board scores (252 on step 1, anticipating something similar for step 2)
3) Californian (Californian IM residencies with heme/onc fellowships include:
1. Scripps Clinic
2. UCSD (x)
3. Loma Linda
3. UCLA Med Center (x)
4. UCI (x)
5. UCD (x)
6. UCSF (x)
7. UCLA Olive View
8. UCLA Harbor
(x): it appears that UCSF, UCLA med center, UCSD, UCD? have not taken a DO intern in the past 3 years. Cannot find info on residents at UCI but I heard they only take 1 heme onc fellow in the program from http://www.scutwork.com/cgi-bin/links/page.cgi?g=Medicine/Pacific/more2.html&d=1)

Looks like my only options are loma linda, scripps and UCLA olive/harbor (although I'll try the ones with an (x) as well like UCLA med center and hope for the best).

Any thoughts on heme onc programs at these californian programs? Or any suggestions in general?

Thank you so much.

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[sanj238]

Dear fellow SDNers,

Thank you in advance for reading this, and merry christmas!

I am a 3rd year medical student at a california osteopathic school and very serious about internal medicine and HemeOnc fellowship. I'm looking at internal medicine positions in California (already identified which ones have heme onc fellowships), and I would like to seek some advice. First some relevant stats:

USMLE Step 1: 252, Step 2 pending
COMLEX 1: 674, COMLEX 2 pending (but only thinking of applying to ACGME so this number doesn't really matter unfortunately)
Honors in IM rotation (and OB-GYN so far).
High rank in class (definitely top 10%, but don't know what exactly)
Published an abstract in JAOA concerning an epidemiological study on breast cancer patients in Taiwan; placed 2nd place in an OMED competition for foreign research abstracts
Did some basic science research about the HERG potassium channel in oocytes, no publish
Was active in planning bone marrow drives with the AADP and be the match 1st and 2nd year, signing up ~150+ pts (of course with help)
Writing a case report on myelofibrosis which I'll try to publish in the near future
Getting a letter of recommendation from a DO heme onc who I worked closely with (and with the case report with)

My question is this: what do you think is the best IM program fit for me to on the grounds of
1) Best Heme Onc Fellowship available (haven't read much on which californian heme onc programs are better?)
2) Best IM experience for a DO with high board scores (252 on step 1, anticipating something similar for step 2)
3) Californian (Californian IM residencies with heme/onc fellowships include:
1. Scripps Clinic
2. UCSD (x)
3. Loma Linda
3. UCLA Med Center (x)
4. UCI (x)
5. UCD (x)
6. UCSF (x)
7. UCLA Olive View
8. UCLA Harbor
(x): it appears that UCSF, UCLA med center, UCSD, UCD? have not taken a DO intern in the past 3 years. Cannot find info on residents at UCI but I heard they only take 1 heme onc fellow in the program from http://www.scutwork.com/cgi-bin/links/page.cgi?g=Medicine/Pacific/more2.html&d=1)

Looks like my only options are loma linda, scripps and UCLA olive/harbor (although I'll try the ones with an (x) as well like UCLA med center and hope for the best).

Any thoughts on heme onc programs at these californian programs? Or any suggestions in general?

Thank you so much.

Congrats on the high board scores- Those are pretty impressive stats- is there a reason why you're being held back besides being DO? What was your secret to the high step score? I've heard that UCSF won't even consider IM unless they're AOA- and AOA is MD exclusive ( at least main campus). Where all have you rotated?

 

[liluoke]

thanks for the reply sanj. I think i'm just kind of held back because it appears many of the IM programs I'd like in California haven't taken DOs in quite some time (I know there are other DOs who have scored highly as well so I wonder if it is indeed a "we don't take DO" kind of thing. the AOA thing you pointed out is a good example . perhaps it's time for me to look at programs outside of california after all.

for step 1, for the first 2 years of med school I was constantly making note sheets where I helped to solidify my memory and I studied in a group and we did "teaching sessions" sort of, teaching each other things to make sure we knew how to explain things (and thus really knew it). for every single topic we covered in med school i covered it with pathoma first, then used goljan to go over more details and utilized some higher sources if I needed to clarify certain points. i made sure to annotate whatever pathoma said into my goljan notes (to make my notes that i did for each subject, I copy and pasted goljan rapid review into a word doc, then annotated high yield notes from first and and pathoma into it). importantly, I kind of identified my weakest areas or more conceptual topics (ie. immunology, inflammation. also physiology for each system) early on in the study process and studied those first, and left memorization heavy things (like micro) to the end. i only went through Uworld once (finished 1 week before step 1). one of my biggest discoveries was getting a hold of the first aid PDF and utilizing the find function - this helped me link a lot of topics together (ie. if I was going through something in the endocrinology section like pheochromocytoma, if i did a search on homovanillic acid, i'd also find out where else it showed up, ie. in the biochem section. doing this helped me make a lot of connections of multiple high yield topics). also, it helped that I had a strong physiology background from majoring in physiology and neurology.

i've rotated at UCSF fresno for FM, IM, and OBGYN through the family medicine department (followed their residents as they went through those areas), and also under 2 DO heme oncs in fresno.