I'm a 3rd year medical student at a US allopathic school without a urology residency or even a uro elective rotation. How do I approach applying uro? I've done a great deal of shadowing but I'm unsure any of the attendings here (all are from private group, no faculty members) would be able to write a solid letter. Should I do 3 aways and then get a general surgery letter from my home school?Really appreciate any advice, especially from those who have encountered similar situations!
We may have gone to the same med school. Shoot me an email and we can talk about my experience. verbatimmt @ g mail. com
I'm between first and second year and in the same boat as you. Any insight from others who have been in this situation would be much appreciated!
Your best shot is definitely doing multiple aways. I know a guy this year who matched from a school without a urology program. He did 3 aways and got letters from each. You're right programs are only going to look favorably on letters from other guys in academics, those from private guys won't cut it. Good luck.
same boat several years ago. Found a private guy who was doing some total BS research and got on board with him. Planned realistically and found 3 places to do away rotations. Ended up only being able to do 2 of the away rotations. Got early, decent letters from both places. applied to 54 programs as I had a 220 on step 1. Got a list of the last 10 years from my medical school matches and found only 6 people who had gone into URO. Of all of those people, I chose one who was a very well liked guy in medical school. I found out where he matched. I did a rotation there. Because he was well liked that gave me a strong footing for getting in their door. I did a rotation, acted like a normal human, interested, but not annoying and matched there over 3 guys from their medical school. Definitely takes a ton of personal initiative because literally NO ONE will help you at your school because they know nothing about urology, but you can make it work. You certainly have some obstacles, but it you apply to realistic programs given your USMLE scores and class rank, then you can make it work.
total horse manure with regards to the comments about how a private guy letter won't count. if it is a guy that went to a residency program where you think you have a realistic shot, and planning on doing an away then it can work. sure, is it best to get letters from walsh praising your nerve sparing capabilities, yes, but those of us who went to schools without programs don't have the luxury of having those guys around. best bet is to find a school within a short geographic distance from you, go there, use a week during your third year vacation to go check out their program and see what is up with them. if they are totally d-bags to you, then you know that place isn't for you. if not, could mean that they will get you on a data collection project with them or something. Cast a wide net in other words, the worst someone can say is no.