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Update with only 9 days of third year remaining...
If you can believe it, I'm still waiting to hear from my away rotation. I imagine they're probably trying to finalize their own student's schedules, but I'm not sure why they can't say 'we'll let you know at the absolute latest on this day' and then I can stop being so anxious about it...
In preparation for the possibility that I won't get the spot, I've penciled myself in to two peds rotations - in August, I'll do peds cardiology and September I will drop radiology in favor of a peds sub-i. I'd really like to take the rads month, but there's really no where to put it. I could change my adult pulm month (December) but the Department of Radiology doesn't offer anything during December (the rotation has a reputation for being easy to skip out of, so it's possible they've been burned by people leaving for residency interviews).
Earlier this week we had a meeting about the Electronic Residency Application Service (ERAS) and the NRMP. Two separate entities (which is a little annoying) and you have to pay for both. Overall, the process seems a bit more overwhelming than the AMCAS...not sure if that's the unfamiliarity or the actual amount of work to be done.
Starting to think about LOR's...lots of meetings to set up. I have one letter lined up from my attending on in-patient medicine, he's the former Dean of Students at my school, so I figure even though I'm not that buddy-buddy with him, he worked with me for a month and knows how to write the letter. I have to set up meetings with the current Dean of Students to get my Dean's Letter ready, as well as the Department Chairmen for both Peds and Medicine. So there are a lot of things to handle and get scheduled. I'll see how my July goes and I may try to get a letter from one of my attendings that month, and the same goes for whoever I work with in Arizona or one of the Peds Cardio staff if that's where I end up. I'll also likely aim for getting one with one of the hospitalists on my peds sub-i in September if that's what I end up doing. From our meeting they said you can only send 4 LOR's to a single program, but if you have more, you choose which letters are sent where through the ERAS. This is helpful for me, since I can tailor those appropriately to either the peds or med/peds programs. Apparently you can also upload as many personal statements as you'd like, and then send specific ones to specific schools. Supposedly someone a couple years ago at my school had 47 different personal statements. I think I'll probably have just two, one specific for peds, one for med/peds...
Costs are already starting to add up, looks like $200 just as a base - $60 to sign up, $60 to actually have your applications sent (up to 10 programs) then an additional $8 for each program 11-20. After twenty, the costs increase. I think after 30, it becomes something like $25 for each additional school. This doesn't include the cost for signing up for the NRMP...
So that's where it stands right now. I'll probably be putting together my CV this weekend (I'm on-call Sunday, so I'll have some free time probably), and I'll be thinking about my personal statement, which is probably going to take some elements of my medical school personal statement.
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