Fellowship application timeline

This is regarding my fellowship application for Pediatric intensive care application. This is based on my personal journey. I had a LOT of help during the same and I am ever thankful for my mentors, seniors and colleagues for guiding me through the way.

First off, once you have decided you want to pursue a fellowship I would start working on building contacts in the field. I spoke to my seniors and mentor and asked what I could do to make myself more marketable.

Couple of things that I did/things that were recommended

• Away electives- If your program lets you do so. Generally, helps in building rapport with attendings at other programs and thereby your network.
• Research in the field of your interest/application
• Presentations: Try presenting at a National conference if possible in your 2^nd /3^rd year of residency prior to applying for a fellowship if possible.
• Work on your personal statement during your down-time in 2^nd year. Since this is generally the bane of existence for most residents

For Pediatric fellowship the time line is a bit as follows

Somewhere in the middle to end of June	Apply for a token to create an ERAS account
End of June to 2nd week of July	- Work on the ERAS application. - Get LOR’s (take into consideration that your attendings are busy and have a life of their own! They will take at least 2-3 weeks to write you a STRONG LOR. Do consider that it takes 5 business days to upload the same to ERAS. The Program Director LOR has to be one of the 3-4LOR’s that you send to programs) P.S.- You should be dropping hints to them in the end of May that you are expecting them to write LOR’s for you in case I missed mentioning that.
2nd week of July	You can technically apply if your application is ready to the programs. P.S- The programs CANNOT see your application yet
July 15th	Moment of truth. This is when the real application begins, and programs call for interviews
July 15th till the mid November	Interviews take place here. So, a lot of post call travelling and leave requests and what not. Finances/travelling tips for fellowship interview in another post that you can find here
Mid October to end of November	Work on your ROL. Trust me a month seems like a LONG time
End of November to Mid December	The MAGICAL match process takes place in NRMP. Start praying for good news.
Mid December	Cheers! You have matched at your desired program!  If not take part in SOAP (post-match scramble in residency)

Please note: NRMP token opens somewhere in between. I do not remember the exact date unfortunately.

Tips on looking up programs

•  Talk to seniors, attendings on the places you are applying to PRIOR to applying.
• Visa is another criterion that some of us used prior to applying. Unless you do not have such restrictions
• FRIEDA is a good place to read on programs as well
• Lastly email the coordinator for places that you have no information on. They will generally get back to you within 2-3 days.

 Hopefully this helps all individuals who will be applying the following year for fellowship! Best of luck and fingers crossed

The road to fellowship: aiming for the stars

This post is by my colleague who I had to hound to write this post once I knew where he matched. The reason I wanted him to write this was to prove that IMG’s do have what it takes to get into prestigious institutions and to not listen to the disbelievers!

"I was ecstatic when I got into the Med-Peds program. It was the perfect program for someone with a global health interest like mine. Also, after having worked in Mumbai in non-academic settings for a year, I was hungry to learn. Medicine became my life and I enjoyed every day at work. Finding my way into residency also gave me confidence.

I then made a decision. All my life I was aiming low, telling myself that I would never be good enough to go to AIIMS, Harvard or any of the Ivy league programs. I told myself that this time I will try. I will work hard to find myself in the best program in the specialty of my choice.

So, from the beginning of my residency, in addition to focusing on my clinical growth, which I must add is extremely important and indispensable, I starting thinking about what fellowship I wanted and how I was going to get there.

My interest is in the practice of critical care in a global health setting. I decided that I wanted to do Infectious Diseases and Critical Care- an unusual choice but an upcoming specialty in medicine. With my program director’s help, I found a mentor and worked on an ID research project. I completed it within the year and submitted it to IDWeek, an international ID conference. I presented there the year after. I also worked on workshops, papers and other teaching projects.

I realized in the course of applying to residency, that being on a visa is big negative for programs. H1B visa narrowed my fellowship prospects further. So I had to be the best candidate possible.

Somewhere in my third year, I realized that Med-Peds being a four-year program, left me with just two years for fellowship as the limit on H1B is 6 years, after which we have to have applied for a green card or leave the country for a year. I had to then make a choice. ID or Critical Care. I couldn’t do both, at least not initially. This was really hard. I knew I loved both but I couldn’t decide. Also, my profile was better suited for an ID program than a critical care program. After weeks of thinking about what I wanted, discussion with visa lawyers to get the specifics of visa and green card right, I decided to apply to both ID and critical care. My philosophy was that what I really wanted was to be in academics practicing global health medicine. It was important for me to land in a program that supported my career interests and helped me grow. And as I found out through the fellowship interview process, it is predominantly about finding a mentor.

I looked at ID programs and realized that I could not even apply to some Ivy league programs because they wouldn’t sponsor an H1B visa. I looked at 30-something critical care programs and found that only about 15 programs sponsor an H1B visa. I was indignant, but thankfully I had put in all the work to become a good candidate.

I heard from some really strong ID programs and I was drawn to all of them! Amongst the critical care programs, UPMC, Pittsburgh seemed most interesting. It is probably the oldest critical care program in the country and arguably one of the best. When I interviewed at UPMC I found out that they have a global health track. I also found a physician there who I knew would be the perfect mentor for me. My interview went well. I was well prepared (make sure you prepare for some behavioral questions) and my enthusiasm for my future career interest and the program was apparent. I got a pre-match offer for critical care (most critical care medicine programs are not part of the match) and I was thrilled to accept it.

I look back and see how far I have come. How many years it took me and how hard it was. But when I was inside it all, I never dreamed I would come this far. But I did not doubt my love for medicine, my enthusiasm or my stamina to do what it takes. My only motivation was, and is, to become the best physician I could become!

I won’t oversimplify the process of getting into residency and fellowship by saying that all that is needed is motivation and love for the field, because I know that unearned privilege like having money to stay in the US to do rotations, luck, meeting the right people and bunch of other factors all make a difference. But I can tell you that you will absolutely need hard work, motivation and perseverance to make your dream come true. It is possible to become that successful physician you want to be.

Dream big. It will happen.

Signing out

Varun Shetty

(varunshetty@protonmail.ch)"

Travel experiences from a newbie on the fellowship interview trail

It seems like just the other day I got done with the residency interview trail and now I am going for the fellowship interviews! Please note the following is for fellowship interviews. If you are a medical student applying for residency I would use my earlier post.

Couple of differences that I noticed between residency and fellowship interviews is as follows

1. Given you are earning in dollars now, the pinch of money is NOT too much but still palpable
2. Most hospitals generally provide accommodation. The really fancy ones even pay for the airfare!
3. The fellowship programs are trying to sell themselves to you instead of vice-versa (at least that is what I felt)

One goes for interviews generally in the 3rd year of residency OR 4th year if you are Med-Peds/Chief in your program. So if you are in residency you generally travel on post-call days, eat pre-interview dinner and sleep at night in the hotel accommodation the program provides. Therefore as mentioned in point 1, you want the fastest yet cheapest option. This is generally flights unless the distance is not too far in which case people do drive.

Couple of tips that I felt that a candidate can do to make the experience easier (at least in my case; please note that different people have different options. This is my experience)
I highly recommend getting the Amex Platinum credit card since it gives you HUGE perks. My referral link is this. To list a few

• 60,000 membership reward points for spending 4k. You will definitely hit this depending on the number of places you interview at
• $200 airline credit- It works with only single airline
• $200 Uber credit ($15 per month)- One uses this feature A LOT on your interview trail. 
• $100 credit for TSA pre-check which is something US citizens can do but for IMG's only if you are one of the global entry countries can you do the same
• Access to a LOT of lounges during flights. I feel this is another BIG perk for residents who are interviewing and frequently flying
• You get complimentary gold access to Hilton, Marriot and Starwood preferred. (The hotels treat you like royalty)- As mentioned in point 2 on the top, the programs pay for the stay. So you can give your account number at check-in and you get rewarded for the stay.

The annual fee though high ($595), I feel the above perks are worth it.

Please note- 
- In case the program does not pay for accommodation, you can check Airbnb for a place to stay at a cheap rate and maybe rent a car to the interview/uber it.
- One can also apply for the Chase sapphire reserve since that has travel deals as well.

I flew the following airlines. Highlighted the perks and features which I liked. All the airlines generally give you pretzels/cookie with a drink (coke, Pepsi etc). You can spend money on hard drinks should you want to indulge in the same.

JetBlue- Loved this airline since there is free wi-fi with amazon prime video streaming. The food is amazing as well. The leg space is GREAT! Given I am a tall person, I love when I can stretch my legs without feeling like I am cramped in my seat.

Southwest- There is NO predetermined seating. Your seat is dependent on WHEN you check in. You get a boarding group number and at the time of boarding, you are broken into groups based on the same. You board the plane and call dibs on the seats. The biggest perk is the 2 checked bags for free, which you can use if you are changing your base-camp. You get wifi to watch cable channels to kill time. You have to pay for internet though.

Delta- The service was great. Loved the food. But depending on when you book your tickets you may get a good deal.

American Airlines- Cheap low cost but no special perks that I would run wild for. Had a couple of bad experiences but the flight crew made up for the same.










Just to get myself organized, I used the following apps. They are available for Android, Apple and windows.

Tripit Pro version- It is $49 for a year subscription which is okay per me for the interviews. It gives you notifications on when you can check in and gives you the shortest route to take to the next gate, which helps when your layover is just half hour and you have to run to the next gate. You can even store your hotel reservation, so you know your itinerary is not missing anything.

Awardwallet pro/free version- Helps you track your miles and know when miles are expiring. It also has a feature of letting you know when to check-in. My referral link is this