As rank lists are becoming finalized, it is becoming increasingly difficult to differentiate programs, particularly if location, "fit," and all other factors may be relatively equivalent. How reliable are Doximity rankings to help differentiate great programs from moderate and poor programs? If there are not reliable, what are better alternatives or methods that is publicly available to use to help learn more about a program's reputation in the radiation oncology community?
I remember being so obsessed with these rankings back when I was in medical school, and now I completely agree with Ricky Scott. Meanwhile the job market is crumbling, our field is in decline, and there are med students who are still playing the top 10 vs other game. It just seems so, odd.
To answer the OP directly though, doximity rankings are worth nothing in terms of figuring out quality of the residency programs.
I think part of the problem is that so many of our peers going into residency haven't functioned much outside of academia and have blinders on. They were focused on getting into the highest ranked college, then the highest ranked med school, so naturally next is the highest ranked residency. And what comes after that - the highest ranked job? I guess it's no surprise that many seek academic careers in the biggest institutions because that's the pinnacle of success that everyone can look at and identify, right? Where in that succession of next steps was the part where we learned to evaluate value? Where was it that we took a step back and asked what our own personal life goals were and made our own rankings in order to achieve them? Are some life goals ranked higher than others?
We have countless medical students with their heads stuck in the sand refusing to believe that anything posted on this forum is true. So this worry about residency rankings is not surprising.
Well, I guess i shouldn't find it surprising anyway. I have personally witnessed highly educated colleagues forego paying back student loans to "invest" in bitcoin. Am I surprised they also don't understand the real investment they made in their medical education and say "the job market is fine!" and not understand the very bad deal they made with their first employment agreement? With the 24/7 news cycle of sensationalist trash on TV, idiotic clickbait bombardment online, comments made by random people on twitter being used to masquerade uninformed opinion as legitimate journalism, and everybody educated or not just buying into it left and right, I suppose nothing really much surprises me anymore. The ad for the Caribbean medical school at the bottom of the page? Totally normal! Fine! I bet they even take bitcoin for tuition.
Or maybe we're all too busy focusing on more important things, like rad bio pathways, to see what's really going on.
Back to the OP: If you are a damn-the-torpedos type still hellbent on going into rad onc, I'd pick the most stable residency in the general region you eventually hope to be in with the least malignant personalities and work environment with the least likelihood of getting shut down. I would say avoid programs where people fail their boards, but that's every program now. Going to a malignant big name program just for the name is a poor life choice unless you are 100% focused on going into (perhaps gambling is a better term) "real" academics, and even then it's iffy. Beyond that your success is going to depend on the value you bring to the table and your personality.
