The Whatever--Random Medical School Stuff

kristin5792
Mon, 10 Feb 2014 22:50:42 +0000

Just wanted to chime in that I agree with all of you, grading in clinical years is nuts, figuring out MSPE is nuts, etc. My school also divides us into “clusters” and a lot of “things” go into your “cluster” and the “clusters” aren’t all the same size so there might be 3 “really really really awesome” students and 10 “really really awesome” students and 15 “really awesome students” and the rest “awesome” students. Apparently, programs to which many students from my school apply are theoretically aware that “awesome” isn’t the best and that “really really really awesome” is actually the best, but other programs might think “awesome” is “really good.”

It’s crazy.

And to the prev poster re MD vs DO residency for orthopedics:

As far as I understand it, there are MD and DO orthopedics residencies, and DO students can apply for MD residency programs if they meet all the requirements, but they are apparently different things altogether. Note that orthopedics is not a fellowship–it’s a residency–and there’s a chance that orthopedics fellowships–eg hand, hip, etc–are the same regardless of whether one completed a MD or DO residency.

(Other surgical specialties are different. ENT, urology, and ophthalmology are specialties that do a good amount of surgery but don’t start with a general surgery residency. Some surgical specialties start with a gen surg residency and then allow for future fellowships–surgical oncology comes to mind as an example. Other surgical specialties are their own thing entirely–orthopedics and neurosurgery come to mind. So it really just depends!)