For Medical Students: How Advocacy and Organized Medicine Make Your Residency Application Stand Out
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Editor’s Note: Submitted By Kylee Borger, MD, MSSNY Resident/Fellow Section Secretary/Treasurer, and Anna Heffron, MD, MSSNY Resident/Fellow Section Councilor. If you are a member and would like to contribute an article for consideration in our newsletter, please contact us at [email protected].
It’s that time of year – ERAS and the various other residency application systems opened to programs on September 24th. Residency application season is one of the most stressful and exciting points of medical school. Fourth-year medical students have been thinking (and re-thinking) how to best make their applications and experiences stand out from the crowd for months.
Residency programs want residents who will be great doctors and fulfill program requirements—including ACGME’s Core Competencies, which every resident in every program needs to fulfill. These core competencies include medical knowledge, patient care, interpersonal and communication skills, professionalism, practice-based learning and improvement, and system-based practices.
From early in training, medical students are already thinking about how to get into the residency of their choice. Traditionally, this means studying for STEP 1 and 2 and pursuing research publications. While these are important, standing out, being memorable, and showing residencies the value you will bring to their program is essential to place a medical student high on a program’s rank list.
Experience in advocacy and organized medicine can build essential skills for residency and help an application stand out.
Growth in medical knowledge can be demonstrated through research and board scores, but skills in other areas are harder to demonstrate. Involvement in advocacy develops direct skills in interpersonal and communication skills by talking with lawmakers on both sides of the aisle to push for change that improves patient care and life for medical students and physicians across the career spectrum. Medical students involved in advocacy become exposed to the breadth of the health system beyond bedside medicine, like how health insurance, Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement, and broader health policies and laws affect the way care is received by patients. These experiences not only help students deepen their understanding of the healthcare system and develop important skills, but they also give students the opportunity to begin working to change healthcare to be better.
These experiences in advocacy make excellent experiences to share on a residency application and interviews. Students who have participated in advocacy have demonstrated their commitment to improving medicine and are developing important skills along the way. Being involved in advocacy also supports you prior to (and through residency) in learning about all of the things beyond bedside medicine that you need to know to be successful in a career in medicine.
Join MSSNY today for opportunities to start your career in advocacy!
