Tropical Medicine: Branch of medicine which deals with diseases (and related conditions) that are prevalent in tropical and subtropical regions is tropical medicine. Medical schools in tropical countries teach their students and are much better than some of the US medical schools. Do you have those skills as an IMG? Use it towards your advantage.
Lifestyle Medicine: Lifestyle (including diet, physical therapy, sleep, socialization, stress management) focused evidence based clinical intervention in managing, reversing and prevention of chronic diseases is lifestyle medicine. Lot of you who are licensed medical practitioners in your country may have already developed some lifestyle interventions for your patients. Utilize those experiences. Patients in the US need those skills.
Research publications and Innovations: Research has been extensively discussed. If you have those skills, programs will love it. Make sure you mention it in your CV. Also, EMR has made big data extraction easy. So, if you have developed expertise in big data based research, you will have the upper hand. Remember, it is relatively rare to find an MD with a higher level of bio-statistics knowledge. Have you thought out of the box and have innovated anything? Make sure you show your innovation with enthusiasm!
Patents and Research Grants: Patents and grants don’t really help residency directly. However, it just shows your capabilities. Particularly for university based programs, if you already have written grant applications and are successful, that speaks a lot. Faculty in the program may be willing to take your help in their research ideas. So, mention at least patent number, title, date and category of your patent/grants in your CV.
Clinical Bedside Ultrasound: Point of Care Ultrasound is an extension of clinical medicine. Point of Care ultrasound is widely added to medical school curriculum in the US. Ultrasound skills as basic as B-Line, LV ejection fraction, identifying the central veins, ascites, IVC assessment during fluid management will be so helpful in clinical decision. There are online resources which are free of cost. Ultrasound probes have become very affordable these days with mobile/tablet apps. So, if you have those skills, use it to impress your residency interviewer.
Global Health/Public Health/Population Medicine: US medical students rotate in other continents to widen their clinical experiences which will help build their career. So, medical schools have affiliation with other clinics, hospitals and universities around the world. When you come to the United States from another country, you are already on a global health mission! Remember that. If you served in Govt hospital (particularly in India), you have worked in public health/population health in some capacity! Aren’t those your strengths? Will those experiences not help residency programs who have global health tracts or have global health missions? Think about it.
Residency in your home country: Trained people perform better. This is true in any job/field. You are prepared for future challenges and waste less resources. Even though the level of training, acuity of cases vary, there are more similarities than differences. If you are trained in a particular field, it also shows that you are committed to that specialty which is a huge plus. Make sure to inform the program about your training and how it has made you a better applicant.
Clinical Procedures: Experience in procedure is very helpful. This is particularly true in emergency room and ICU settings. If you have worked in your country after graduation and have performed/assisted procedures, you should mention in your CV and during your interview. It may be inserting central lines, paracentesis, thoracentesis, A-line etc.
Teaching experience: As a resident, you are expected to get trained and not teach medical students. However, it is not uncommon where you are expected to teach during morning reports, noon conferences and bedside procedures to your juniors (including medical students). If you have teaching experience, make sure you have mentioned it. Did you teach your juniors in medical school? Did you teach USMLE after your steps? Did you teach biology for pre-med courses?
Clinical Quality Improvement/System Improvement experience: Community programs are more interested in quality improvement projects where you do PDSA cycle. Most of the QI projects revolve around communication, better operation, EMR order sets, improve quality metrics or discharge planning. It is not very difficult to work on a PDSA cycle and have some basic experience.
Hospital Administration: As a resident, you frequently interact with hospital administration. As a senior resident, discharge planning, nursing home, home health issues are more of an administrative task. If you have healthcare administration experience, that will benefit the program and ease your residency experience.
MPH or MS in Clinical Research: A structured program trains you in a systematic way. Graduates of these programs help university programs who may be more interested in epidemiology/clinical research.
Healthcare disparity: Socioeconomic, racial and gender based health/medical care disparities are very evident around the globe and the US is not an exception. Learning these disparities and optimizing the medical care to negate these disparities improves clinical outcome. Hospitals are evaluated based on their patient outcome. So, residents who are tuned or have inclination (proved by past experience) towards understanding healthcare disparity is much valued by residency programs. Graduate Medical Education offices of some universities also offer certification programs. If you have research or population health experience in this area, programs probably would like to know more about it.
Telemedicine: Remote patient care is an upcoming field, particularly after COVID. Patients and physicians have recognized the importance of telemedicine (both synchronous and asynchronous) in patient outcomes, particularly in radiology, ICU, preventive medicine and specialist consults. Tell the programs about your telemedicine skills. Residency programs love to hear those skills.
Medical technology: Technology savvy residents are always an asset. With electronic medical records and electronic communications, medical technology has definitely come up. Particularly, artificial intelligence and data based reminders have eased clinical medicine. There are post-residency fellowships available in medical technology/informatics.
Do you have any of these skills? Utilize those for your advantage.
Comments