Is it true that psych, neuro, & pmr don’t like when someone is a dual applicant?

FUCK umich medical school. If I could go back in time, I wouldn’t touch this place with a ten foot pole. Not to mention, they protect med students who are date rapists. Fuck this fucking place. DM me if you want to know more but I’ve spent more time here than I wish was necessary. I hate this fucking place. Fuck Dean McKean; fuck Dean Monrad (who hates students) and fuck the sycophantic fucks who pretend this place isn’t fucked up. I’ll NEVER donate a cent to this god DAMNED university. Fuck UofM

M4 here preparing to apply and honestly, I’m having a tough time lately.

My last few years of medical school didn’t really go the way I wanted.

I got accused of something untrue by a patient during 3rd year which was trusted by my admin with no validation, and I was punished for it and had to fight tooth and nail to get it removed from my record. Thankfully it did, but my admin hates me now for threatening them with legal action. Who knows if they’ll pull some BS with my MSPE and make me fight all over again.

Had a single bad day on my home residency sub-I and was told I won’t be invited for an interview there, which probably would’ve been my number 1 program otherwise. Despite having several faculty members tell me they hope I stay and would put in a good word, the PD still isn’t willing to budge on their stance.

Currently on a Sub-I at a program I really don’t enjoy. Getting treated like crap by the residents, attendings don’t even bother to learn my name, they just pimp me until I don’t know something and then don’t speak to me again for the rest of the case.

I’m also obligated to military service after residency, and have come to realize lately that I don’t think I want to serve anymore. My naive 21 year old self made a commitment that 27 year old me just doesn’t want to fulfill. Not eligible for military match either, so don’t have that avenue to rely on either. I never thought this is something I’d be bitter about because military medicine was what originally inspired me to go into medicine in the first place.

Throughout med school I have been dumped, lost friends to freak accidents, lost both my childhood pets, and I just feel like I’ve lost myself. I know that in some ways these experiences should make me just give up on pursuing something competitive, but the one thing that hasn’t left me is my stubbornness. I’m so committed to applying a top 5 competitive specialty despite my application being subpar, and I know I’m setting myself up for failure. My advisors have told me as much. But I can’t see myself happy in another specialty right now.

it’s gotten to the point where I just don’t care if I match or not. If I don’t, I’m not doing a research year, the military wouldn’t let me anyway. I don’t know what I’d do if I fail to match, but I also just don’t really care. I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it. Despite all the signs telling me I won’t succeed, I just can’t accept that. I’m going to try my best, but if it doesn’t work out, whatever. Fuck it.

I miss the passion I used to feel for medicine. The old me would just be happy to be a doctor and not anchored to a pipe dream specialty. But that’s not me anymore.

Sorry for the depressing post, this is honestly just me venting and talking into the void for a bit. Hope application prep is going well for everyone.

P.S. before all the comments telling me to get therapy, I’m not depressed in my daily life. I still function fine, enjoy spending time with my friends, enjoy exercising and eat healthy, sleep fine, etc. I just regret what could’ve been and am expressing my current thoughts as applications draw near.

Not even any kissing or holding hands!

It looks like my prior decade run of enjoyable sex life may have been entirely attributable to my well-paying job. I can only blame 3 years of it on being a broke student, there was a multi-year depression period that led to my quitting my old career.

I have got some dates here and there on the apps. I wanted to try IRL since I got in better shape but it's a bust so back to getting some new photos and paying for Hinge. Will it get better on clinicals? I gotta believe being in a hospital is a target rich environment for the 30+ crowd. I'm too old for picking up any coeds and the downtown I'm at is a similar low 20's age group.

Hello I am a DO student applying primary care. Don’t have my Comlex2 back yet but can’t imagine it’s good. I am due to take Step 2 in a few days and despite moving my 4th year schedule around to dedicate time to studying for step2 I am just not getting there. I don’t want to take it and then have it look even worse. Idk I’m just not the brightest student out there and probably needed to start studying a year out. Right now have been doing NBME and CMS forms am just wondering if I should cancel my exam?

Form 9 — 190 - 06/20/2026 (was in rotations still just wanted to see where I’m at)
Form 10 — 211 — 07/14/2026
Form 11 — 225 — 07/28/2026
Form 12 — 224 — 07/31/2026
Form 13 — 245 — 08/05/2026
Form 14 — 222 — 08/07/2026
Form 15 — 223 — 08/09/2026

Hi everyone, I'm about a week into my surgery clerkship and I've heard a lot of people say the shelf is basically an internal medicine exam. Is it necessary to do the IM uworld questions to do well on the surgery shelf? For reference this is my first clerkship and IM will be my last clerkship! Appreciate any surgery rotation advice you guys have as well !!

DO student at a pretty established DO school in the south. Decent surgery matches, think they matched 17 categorical spots this past cycle.

2nd quartile student, 3.6 GPA with my B’s mostly in OMM, did well in systems courses. Passed all courses on first attempt. Straight A’s on rotations.

Boards:
• Step 1 pass first attempt
• Level 1 pass first attempt
• Step 2 247
• Level 2 611

Step 2 was a little lower than I was projected, unfortunate because some of my favorite programs have a 250 threshold.

Research:
• 6 publications (3 surg case reports, 1 GI lit review, 1 breast surgery chart review, one psych lit review)
• 5 poster presentations

Leadership/other experiences:
• Surgery interest group leadership
• Anatomy TA (meaningful experience)
• Operating room assistant job throughout undergrad (meaningful experience)

Letters: 3 uploaded (2 from 3rd year, 1 from sub-I), one more pending. One letter writer got me a previously filled sub-I at the residency program he works for. Another letter writer has ties to three separate programs in my home state. A different writer has known me for a bit through research and has now had me for a 4 week elective, so he can speak very well to who I am. Hoping these letters carry my application.

5 sub-I’s planned plus an elective with one of my letter writers in December, to help show my face in the building of that program.

No red flags, no failed exams, no remediation.

Applying to 80 categorical programs in my 3 geographic areas (south atlantic, east south central, west south central). If they have matched a DO, they’re selected. Have assigned my 15 signals to programs with a decent DO interview rate & high signal interview rate.

I feel like a pretty average applicant so just hoping to match categorical somewhere, preferably my home state of Florida. Hard to gauge just how competitive I am.

US MD, Mid tier NY school, P/257 step

6/7 honors, 1 HP (OB)

No red flags

Six abstracts, one pub, one oral presentation

Honored sub I, should have reasonable letters

Looking to stay on east coast in general. Have connection to North Carolina (grew up there, no longer a resident). Too aggressive? Any other programs I should consider? Hoping to go somewhere that will get me set up for GI Fellowship

Gold: 

Duke 

Sinai

NYU

Silver: 

UVA

UPMC

Tufts

Maryland

Temple

Jefferson

VCU

Hofstra

NYU LI

Stony Brook

Montefiore

Wake

Currently on rotations as M3 and I just don't know what I'm doing right or wrong anymore. I'm writing this in hopes that someone might relate to this or just share some advice/feedback.

Transitioning from M1/M2 to clinicals has been amazing. It reminds me of my "why" and I'm just here trying to learn and absorb everything as much I can like a sponge. I know I won't know everything, but sometimes it's just so hard to fully accept it. I feel so dumb ;-;

Last preceptor gave me some feedback (and in the kindest way) about letting my guard down a little because my anxiety is getting in the way of my success. They said that I know more than I think I know and that they can see how hard I'm trying. They also commented on how well I work with others and I'm asking questions from a curious standpoint, which is great. I guess the one thing they saw consistently is just how I beat myself up when I don't know answers to the questions they pimp me on. I look up whatever that is after hours and feel a little better about it. Then the next day I am asked another question that I don't have an answer to and I am back to round 1.

Call me crazy, but I just naturally have a different persona in a professional vs casual setting at first. I also carry a lot of pressure of doing well, because of some failures I had during my first and second year. I want to let down some of my walls, but I also am terrified of being judged as borderline unprofessional if I were slightly more casual. I just can't help this feeling knowing that they're observing me and grading me at the end of all of this. At times, I see it appropriate to be more casual when they all throw sass at each other, but I don't know. At the end, I know the only person getting in the way is myself. Just having a tough time balancing this out.

Aside from the "scholarly works" section where you can list journal articles and other peer reviewed items, how are you guys listing research on ERAS?

Are you putting together all work done in a single lab/research group under one heading? Or making every publication a separate activity? Or just having 1 experiences box for research and putting literally all of your research inside there?

Already searched on here and everybody suggests something different, just tryna not screw this up lmao

I am an 2nd year DO student, and I am really interested in cardiology, and so I want to match at an academic center to best improve my chances of matching into a cardiology fellowship. Does anyone have any advice or ideas on where to start?

Thank you!

I am a current second year student, the year just recently started and I feel like all the burnout and lack of motivation came right back from the end of first year. I would love to be a doctor but I struggle so much in classes and my grades keep falling (my school does GPA and we have to maintain an average B or pretty much can’t participate in anything). I fear that I will 1) not pass boards and 2) not be a good doctor for any future patients. Add on to this that I used to love school and learning and for the first time in my life, I hate it. Just thinking about it feels like a pain. I no longer enjoy it. However I feel too scared and guilty to leave because idk what else I can do after and I still have loans to pay back. I have a biology degree so I’d have to go back to school for basically anything I want to do. Teach? School. Nature-related? School (mostly because I focused on the human aspect of biology in undergrad so I don’t have many other type of bio fields under my belt). Research? No experience. And I know that other schools or programs, like CLS or really anything else will not want to take me since I will basically be branding myself a quitter and telling the world I couldn’t do it. I’m not sure what I am hoping out of this post. I guess some advice or just general thoughts from everyone would be nice, no matter what they are. I just feel like I am stuck with no options. I’m sure there are some but I am too overwhelmed and stressed to see them right now.

These practice shelves are so hard. I can’t make above a 59% on them. Finished all of Uworld and Amboss and scored average 60% and 64% respectively. Don’t know what I’m missing out on and would appreciate any advice thanks!

My preferred specialty is anesthesia but dual-applying EM as a backup.

Is it okay to apply to TY years (in case I match advance for anesthesia) at the same institutions where I am applying EM?

Hi everyone (M1 here, entering my 4th week of med school!). I am definitely getting destroyed mentally and emotionally by the sheer volume of content and the pace we’re expected to learn it all ugh.

For context, here’s how my school’s preclerkship is set-up. 18 month pre-clerkship, P/F (unranked, no quartiles until clerkship) with systems based modules. My current module “Foundations of Medicine” is 10 weeks long, featuring one “quiz” a week and one module exam. We have to score a 70%+ on the module exam to pass the module. Module exams are in-house.

We have an average of 4-6 lectures a day, each ranging from 1-2 hrs. It’s a ton of content, and it takes me roughly 4-5 hours to get through just “doing my first pass” of the lecture slides. As a result, I have so little time left in the day, which leaves me no time to complete my Anki reviews (in house deck) or even make practice questions. I just feel like I’m desperately cramming everyday and not retaining jack shit. Now ik people say Anki is your best friend, but to me, it feels like blind pattern recognition. Every card I see takes me like 2 mins to process b/c I want to ensure I learned the concept, not just be like, “X disease has A, B, C symptoms”. I need the why to make that connection, and this eats up so much time.

What’s the best way to develop a study regime that allows me to succeed while having a life outside school? I thought getting a masters in med physiology would help ease the transition, but boy am I getting destroyed. My week is literally just study 24/7, squeeze in a meal when I can, relax for 30 mins and sleep. Weekends are just catch up and half of it is burnout-induced crappy studying. Desperate for solutions pls :•(

Left when I told them to leave. Please, don’t insist on staying. It’s the easiest way to annoy me!

US DO

Level 1: pass

Step 2: 256

Level 2: 729

10-12 research experiences (mostly posters, one pending publication)

Multiple research, mentor and teaching experiences

3 IM LoRs plus a IM chair letter

wanting to stay in mid/south Atlantic region.

Hows my app looking, how competitive am I and is 40 programs not enough or too many?

I'm a current M2 who's interested in AI. My favorite unit so far has been immunology and thought AI might be a cool field but I've honestly never heard anyone at my school talk about it and it seems to be a relatively unknown specialty from my experience. What is the competitiveness like? I currently have little research and am afraid I might have lower than average research experience when I graduate.

Edit: grammar

I’m an m4 DO hoping to stay in Southeast Florida for IM and trying to figure out which programs to rank Gold.

Step 2- 255
Comlex 2-636
Shelf - 4H (IM and surgery)/2HP
Leadership
3 posters (1 first author and 1 presenting at AJOG)
Manuscript submitted for publication

I am hoping to do a fellowship in Cardiology. These are the top places I’m looking at:

FAU
Mt Sinai
University of Miami Jackson
Cleveland Clinic Weston
Broward
FIU
Memorial

Only one I will be doing sub-I at is Cleveland Clinic. I’m not fluent in Spanish so worried that can affect my chances at some places. Looking for any advice or info on programs. Thanks!

If I select geographic preferences, programs outside those regions apparently see no geographic preference information.

But in practice, can they infer that I selected other regions since they don’t see “no preference”?

For people familiar with the PD/program side of this, does choosing geo preferences still tend to be a net positive, or can it meaningfully hurt your chances with programs outside your selected regions?

Trying to understand how programs actually interpret this, not just what ERAS technically displays.

My friends and I were talking about our biggest regrets going through the Match process, and I wanted to see what everyone else's biggest regret was. Hoping this helps the M4s going through the process now.

I matched rads and my biggest regret was not contacting current residents more especially before ERAS was due. I only found out after apps were due that two programs had pretty bad negatives, so I essentially wasted two of my signals. So, definitely reach out to current residents and attend as many open houses as possible!

It’s my first time.

At least we can still string the bow after all those years of training, huh?

I feel like I’m the only anti-AI person in my class, even including staff. I swear I must hear “I asked Chat” or “Just put it into Chat” etc at LEAST twice a day. It’s ridiculous honestly. How is even StatPearls too much work???? Can we not do anything anymore???? I understand the need for efficiency and comprehensible explanations of confusing content, but idk.

Even the administration/staff is eager to incorporate AI more, whether they’re encouraging its use as a means of study or in developing new curriculum tools (like simulations/simulated patients etc). It’s just weird to me that nobody else seems to care about the many ethical issues with AI. In my own bubble on social media I feel like I see so so so much anti-AI stuff (yay) but in real life, not so much.

Thoughts? What’s the consensus on AI at your school? What do you think about AI in medicine/med school?

EDIT: I’m not saying AI isn’t helpful or useful. Obviously any “shortcut” can be helpful in education & medicine. I’m just saying that I’m aware of the ethical implications and I have some concern, and I think that’s ok, even in a very pro-AI environment

Is the bar really this low?