Regional Bias?

[schizosquirrel]

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[asmallchild]

It helps to have a strong background, to be from that specific area, and probably to mention a desire to stay when on interviews.

But programs in the Bay Area are both desirable due to location and program prestige.

I suspect they will pick based on the best overall quality of the applicant and discard any "regional bias"

Posting this on behalf of a friend:

I was wondering about regional basis for competitive specialties like Dermatology. And....how appropriate it will be to mention geographical preferences during residency interviews next year. My partner is a lawyer in San Francisco and I'm a 4/5th year medical student at one of the two Bay Area schools. Our long term plan is to settle in SF, buy a home, start a family, etc. It would be difficult for my partner to move to another city, and frankly we'd both prefer to stay closer to friends in the area and have sort of grown accustomed to the LGBT-friendliness of the Bay. UCSF is my top choice, but I'm also considering Stanford and plan to apply broadly on the West Coast, East Coast, and parts of the Mid-West (50+ programs) because I understand the intensity of competition for derm residencies.

I have decent Step 1 scores for derm (though, not outstanding/shocking), finishing up a 4/5 year in the Doris Duke program doing derm research, attend a Top 10 medical school, have an extensive previous basic science background in non-derm areas (3+ first author publications in top tier journals), decent outside activities in unique areas few other candidates will have (though, many not derm specific), etc.

Anyway, given that I'm at least competitive on paper, I was wondering how much personal circumstances might be taken into account by residency directors and how appropriate it would be to mention these during an interview.

Thanks.

 

[SierraPoppa]

I would tell your "friend" to think very carefully about what you do and don't disclose during interviews about your personal life. You may think that being gay or lesbian will help you stay in the area, but many derm chairpeople are old school IME. Disclosing such personal information may actually backfire on you if you don't know the person you're talking to well. On top of that, derm is a very small community and word may get out to other programs where you would not have disclosed that information. Also, don't assume that just because a program is in the midwest the whole area will be bigoted. There is a strong L/G community where I'm from.

The regional bias is real, at least in my experience, based on the interviews I got. The only interviews I got that were not in the midwest were a direct result of someone in the program having a relationship with a letter writer, etc. I would not take that to mean that it will necessarily help your chances much if you're from the west coast... just that it's incredibly hard to break into that market if you're from somewhere else.