year off during medical school?

[hememan1]

Hi guys,
I'm new to this forum and I was looking for some advice. I'm a current MS3 and I think I'm leaning towards rads for residency. I was wondering how PDs would look at a year off during medical school? I was feeling burnt out at the end of MS2 and not fully prepared for Step1. I ended up doing a research year in an unrelated specialty and also took some extra time to study for step 1 (ended up getting 250+). I know its hard for anyone to predict the future but I was wondering if anyone had any insight into similar cases to mine? Would this year off be viewed as a red flag (I published 3 articles in the off time) and I'm I still competitive for rads?
Thanks!

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[elektroshok]

I'm by no means a PD, but it sounds like that year might have helped your application not only by doing well on step one but by getting publications out of it.

Its not like you took a year off to party or just eff around

 

[TheFlashMD]

If you spin it the right way it should definitely be an overall positive.

 

[tco]

Your situation sounds very similar to mine. I'm having no issues with accumulating interviews. We'll see how the interviews go.

 

[hememan1]

thanks tco, I read through some of your other posts and saw that you did a post-soph path fellowship, just wondering when did you take your step? was it after the fellowship?

 

[hememan1]

i did basically the same thing at my school

 

[hememan1]

i did basically the same thing at my school

 

[thRob]

I did a research year and played it up in my application. I think that this backfired. PDs want to train radiologists, not researchers. I dont regret the research year, but I do regret making it the focus of my application.

 

[chronicidal]

I did a research year and played it up in my application. I think that this backfired. PDs want to train radiologists, not researchers. I dont regret the research year, but I do regret making it the focus of my application.

seriously? what kind of programs are you interviewing at? I would imagine that the high powered academic programs (e.g. MGH, MIR) want to see some interest in academics, including research. But that's just my speculation.

 

[tco]

thanks tco, I read through some of your other posts and saw that you did a post-soph path fellowship, just wondering when did you take your step? was it after the fellowship?

I took it immediately before I started the fellowship. I was worried that I'd forget everything by the end, which I did.

 

[NeuroRay]

seriously? what kind of programs are you interviewing at? I would imagine that the high powered academic programs (e.g. MGH, MIR) want to see some interest in academics, including research. But that's just my speculation.

ya i agree, that doesn't really make sense that it would backfire. when I applied I had a research focused application and got interviews at a lot of research heavy places like MIR, Mayo, UW to name a few.

 

[thRob]

seriously? what kind of programs are you interviewing at? I would imagine that the high powered academic programs (e.g. MGH, MIR) wa
nt to see some interest in academics, including research. But that's just my speculation.

My application was more appropriate for a doctoral program in biomedical engineering than a clinical radiology residency. When asked at interviews "why radiology?," I talked about the research opportunities and didnt ever really address any clinical reasons. In retrospect, this was a huge mistake. Being in the reseach environment at a top tier institution for 1 year really scewed my perspective on what would be appropriate in an application.

Research is good to have in an application. Just remember that you are applying for 4 years of almost entirely clincal work with maybe a few dedicated research months, not the other way around.

Either way, it turned out to be a happy ending for me. I like my program very much and probably would have not ended up here had I not written such an inappropriate application.