Im posting this for a friend who does not have a SDN account. Currently friend is about to start fourth year of medical school.
-He has a Step 1 score of the mid-240s.
-Grades with high passes in everything and honors in OBGYN, pediatrics, and psych.
-My friend is worried about a lack of research. He has been involved in a year of research, with no publications. However, he does have a poster presentation at the school.
-My friend is uncertain about what his odds are and is debating whether he should delay his application by a year.
Any advice would be appreciated.
Take my advice with my grain of salt because I never dedicated myself to the idea of applying ortho but I considered it.
Ultimately it's up to you to advise your friend, but I made the conscious decision to not even think Orthopedics mid-way through third year for various reasons. The way I thought about it was that I had the Step 1 score, which anyone in Ortho could accept, but what else would I bring to the table? I think the lack of meaningful research is a big hit combined with a step score that's merely average or maybe even slightly below depending on the exact number. Clinical grades are decent though and HP in Surgery and 1/2 honors is pretty good!
I would say he has low odds though since nothing stands out in his app and it seems like he has no distinguishable research. Here are a couple things to keep in mind though:
1.) Does your friend have an Orthopedic Surgeon as a mentor? What is the likelihood of him obtaining STRONG letters of recommendation for Orthopedic Surgeons? I think one/two may come off away rotations, but I'm sure at least one should be from a home site.
2.) Does he at least have research experience in Orthopedics? It's one thing to not be published (and I hear programs can forgive that), but if he's not even been active in the field I don't think that's a good thing.
3.) Does he know what the effect of an elective gap year will have on his competitiveness? There are some good things he could do if he has a mentor and a plan, but then how would that look on applications?
Anyhow, I'll defer this to someone who's got an Ortho AMA running.
@OrthoTraumaMD
Lastly, when your friend makes an SDN account, tell him to post here.
ortho chances
There are Ortho residents there who probably have some knowledge on how their selection processes work and can probably advise him the best.
