What does it take to be competitive to get into hem/onc fellowship?

[mrdowntoearth]

I'm a 4th year med student and very interested in going into hem/onc fellowship. I heard that you need to have great LORs, good research background and great board scores to be considered competitive. Now, I'm curious which board scores that they really look at? Is it all Step 1, 2 and 3 combined? or Step 3 mostly? or Internal Medicine Board Exam?

Also, does coming from community vs. univ-based hospital matter? I suppose doing IM residency in univ-based hospital helps because there are more opportunities in clinical research, but you can always get involved in research even when you're in comm-based hospital, right?

Any advice are greatly appreciated. Thanks

mrdowntoearth

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[IMbound]

The most important thing that fellowship directors look at is where you did your internal medicine residency. To have the best chance, it is worthwhile to come from a university based, well regarded program. Also, it is good when applying to internal medicine programs to look at if they are affiliated with a comprehensive cancer center or an NCI cancer center. Here, you will find the most accessability to research during residency but more than that, you will be able to work closely and hopefully get letters from clinicians that are well regarded in the field.

So, it is definetely better to come from a university program rather than community based as generally fellowship directors feel that you will be better trained. Also, as stated above, research probably will be very difficult in a community based program. Now having said that, i'm sure there are many who have attained hem/onc fellowships from community programs but it is more difficult.

Board score-wise, it never hurts to have good board scores so it is very useful to study hard and achieve the highest score possible for you. Having said that, it was not nearly as important on the fellowship trail for hem/onc as where you did residency and your LORs

Most will be applying to fellowship in the 2nd year of IM residency so you likely will not have taken your IM boards yet.

Hope that helps..........

 

[mrdowntoearth]

Thanks IMbound for your input. So, just to clarify on the board scores, are you saying that all 3 steps are important? I got 227/92 on step 1 and 216/89 on step 2. I'm a bit disappointed with the step 2 score but I promised myself to kick a$$ on step 3. Do you know if they weigh more on step 3?

 

[adam6]

While I agree that going to a well-regarded university program helps, do not let people tell you that it is impossible to gain a heme/onc fellowship coming from a community/univ-affiliated program.
You should really choose the residency program that is the best fit for you. If you aren't going to thrive in a "malignant" program, don't go there for 3 years of your life (not that all univ programs are malignant - this could apply to some comm programs, too).
If you choose a comm/affiliated program, investigate the heme/onc department and the fellowship match record. At our univ affiliated program, the department attendings all trained at great institutions and have good connections (and connections are the key!!). As a result, our residents have a great match rate in heme/onc -- going to programs like Vanderbilt, Northwestern, Univ of Pittsburg (this guy was accepted to Beth Israel Deaconess but had to turn it down due to his wife's fellowship prospects), Univ of Wisconsin, etc, etc. Granted...they aren't going to MSK or MD Anderson - but great programs, nonetheless.

 

[IMbound]

Those step scores are good. Again, step scores will only help the application and hurt only if they are very poor. Mostly, fellowship directors will look at LORs and the program that you come from. I do agree w/ the prev post who noted that as long as your program has clinicians that are well connected, you should not have a problem. Overall, though, you are generally more able to get this sort of environment in a University setting.

 

[mrdowntoearth]

Thanks to both of you adam6 and IMbound. Adam6, if I may ask, what univ-affiliated program are you in?

 

[adam6]

No problem!

Evanston Northwestern. I'd be happy to answer any questions - alternatively, you can look up my other posts about the program You'll soon see I'm quite the little recruiter heheh