Do you plan on answering with advice or just playing?
Well, you have to ask realistic questions. "How hard is it to get top program X" is pretty tough to answer, esp when you haven't even taken one day of biochem yet.
...expecially if I want to go into a multidisciplinary group practice where I can do 90-100% surgery all the time? ...
...I have nothing against the clinic AT ALL I just really love surgery!
...
Oh really? You thouroughly enjoyed years of clinics and performed many foot surgeries as a pre-pod? How many cases have you scrubbed?
90-100% OR surgery is something you'll only find in gen surg or trauma surg specialties, and even a fair amount of them do more clinic. Most pods are 10-50% surgery. Typical ortho is maybe 40-70% surgery. You have to take the classes, do the clinics and clerkships, and figure out what interests you. Your opinions will probably change over the next few years, and they may not. Regardless, you know basically nothing at this point.
...I say do what it takes to get top notch training (no matter where it is). You'll have more options in the end. Just something to think about!
...As far as the Kaiser residencies, they are VERY competetive to get into. As has been alluded to before, get through the basics first.
This is good advice.^^
Top training programs are all competitive because it's pretty well known that they will give you elite skills and reputation. The ones in nice, popular areas of the country become even more competitive. It's fairly self-limiting to restrict yourself to one particular geographic area, but people do it every year - and a lot of those people scramble. Every year, there are honors grads (and we're not just talking OCPM's numerous 4.0 students
) that go for these programs and don't match them, so yes, they are quite competitive. IMO, the current 'top 10' podiatric surgical residencies would look something like this - in no particular order:
DeKalb (Atlanta)
West Penn (Pitt)
Penn-Presby (Phila)
UPMC (Pitt)
Grant (Columbus)
Kaisers (Bay Area)
PSL (Denver)
Orlando
Inova (Virginia)
Detroit Med Cntr
We are fortunate that there are
many good PMS36 programs that give you great skills...
http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?p=6091105#post6091105
...but those ten I listed above are among the highly competitive ones year in and year out. I'd imagine that Kaisers will get even more apps now that AZPod is increasing class sizes and Western will start to graduate a class in 4yrs.
It all depends on the national class sizes and where the graduating students want to go, though (ie: in a year where half of the top 50 overall residency applicants are from Texas, then the programs there will obviously be ultra competitive). Your best chance is just to do as well as you can in classes and clinics, pass boards, and if you want top clerkships/interviews, you then need to go above and beyond with additional reading, conferences, and research to really set yourself apart. You should also make a point to get networked a bit... pod is a small field, and who you know can occasionally be as important as what you know.
You also have to figure out what you want to do - both during residency and afterwards. Do you think you'll want to work in private practice or an academic setting after you finish training? Do you want to train more with pod or more with ortho? Do you want to do more academics and research... or more "learn by doing"?
Every program, even ones in the "top ten," have emphasis points... and weak points. Some might be very strong on diabetic salvage and research but very weak on trauma. Others might be excellent for trauma but fairly skimpy on advanced, or even common, elective cases. Some might have great numbers but you barely ever get to spend time in clinic to learn how to bill, chart, and handle post-op complications. In the end, you have to decide what programs are realistically available to you (based on your gpa, clinical skill relative to other apps), and then you pick the best overall program for your needs.
