Documents needed for electives

Since I had a big problem regarding the documents needed for electives, thought should make a quick short list for them.

Things from the college

• Medical Transcript 
• Clinical clerkship certificate 
• No objection certificate
• Primary language taught in the college for Medicine was English
• Can try getting a conduct certificate

Things to be done by self

• Curriculum Vitae 
• Personal statement (at least a rough copy)

Other documents

• LOR from the Dean or a person held in high regard (Should be a good one)
• Background clearance- This has to be done through the police. Would take minimum of a 5 days to a month, so take that into account.
• Malpractice insurance - IMG liability[ http://www.imgliability.com/buy/ ](cheapest and fastest) - This is the most expensive part after the money spent for your immunization tests. I have also listed towards the end of this post the other sites that you can use. (You can enter my name 'Neil Dominic Fernandes' or my email id neilnf@gmail.com in the "How you heard about us field" while getting a quote for the insurance and get an additional discount of $20.)
  P.S.- I get that as an amazon gift card with you getting the discount. Win-win situation IMHO :P
• Medical insurance- Bajaj Allianz (cheapest). 
• Recommend reading this post for understanding the concepts - http://electives.us/malprachealthins.html 

For the vaccination aspect

1. Letter stating that you have been vaccinated for Hepatitis B or Hep B titers- recommend titers
2. Letter stating that you have been vaccinated for Varicella or Varicella titers or a letter stating that you had chicken pox when you were a kid - Recommend letter stating you immunized.
3. For Tuberculosis - Monteux test. This will be most likely positive. Recommend getting a chest X-ray showing that you are TB negative. However, if to your misfortune, it is positive you will need to start the treatment.
4. Letter stating that you have been vaccinated for MMR or their titers
5. Letter stating that you have been vaccinated for DT or their titers
6. Flu shot if you going during the year end (so called flu season)

The cost for all the above vaccinations, comes to around 5k. Max. This is the information I got from my friends and seniors. Preferably get all the reports within a year prior to apply for the electives or you would have to repeat it, incurring additional costs. This is all I can remember now for the vaccination aspect. 

I would recommend checking each college's individual requirements, since the above documents are the ones I had, but note that the list is not limited to this only. Do check elective.us and umartariq which are really helpful sites. Above all, talk to your seniors and ask them for advice, since they know what problems you would face and will help you troubleshoot them, at least mine did.

Visa sponsor letter for Step 2 CS

Find below a sample visa sponsor letter. You can you it to build your own and make it better.

Generally the Notary knows how to do it. But it always better to have your own for backup in case the Notary is a newbie.

DECLARATION

August 21, 2014

I, DAD NAME, S/o Mr GRAND FATHER, aged 62 years, residing at ADDRESS, do hereby solemnly affirm and declare as follows:

My son, Neil Dominic Fernandes, Passport No. 12345, issued from XXX, India, intends to attend USMLE Step 2 Clinical Skills examination to be held at Atlanta, Georgia, U.S.A. I do hereby give free consent and No objection to my son to attend the above mentioned examination at Atlanta, U.S.A.

Furthermore, I do hereby agree to bear all the expenses incurred during his visit to U.S.A. I have attached my bank statements and income tax certificates to show that I have sufficient resources for the same.

The above stated facts are true and correct to the best of my knowledge, information and belief.

Father’s Name

F/o Neil Dominic Fernandes

Letter link

How to get an ERAS token in order to apply for the MATCH

This was a question that may sound dumb at first, but when actually faced it, looks like a real serious one. Anyways just listing out the procedure below.

ERAS token is a way through which one can start one's application for residency. For IMGs (International Medical Graduates) one can get the token in the following way.

1. Open your OASIS account from the ECFMG portal.
2. On the left hand side there will be the following option - ERAS® Support Services, click on it
3.  Next click on  ERAS Residency Token NOT THE ERAS Fellowship Token
4. Once you complete the request and make the payment you will be directed to your ERAS token number. 
5. Do note it down since if not mistaken I do not think they send you your number or anything, so either print the page or write it down on a sheet of paper. You will not need this token number once you create an account in myeras FYI
6. Then go to the myeras page - https://services.aamc.org/eras/myeras2015/ and then click register token and do as the instructions are told, which are pretty simple and straight forward.

Best of luck

Tips while using USMLE world

USMLE World, for those of you who are new to the field of USMLE is a MUST HAVE during the preparation of your Steps for United States Medical Licensing Exam (USMLE).

A few tips I thought that might be useful for people who start using it for the first time.

Use the timed mode and NOT the untimed or tutor mode, since you are using the Q bank as a test prep material not for a walk in the park. If you want to be sharp and score well you need to learn to pace yourself well in time. Time management is of paramount importance.

The next tip is not my own, but I had stumbled upon it during my search to learn how to use the Q bank effectively. I felt that since you have a time limit during each test, say for example in my case Step 1. The timer is set at 60.00 mins which thankfully starts counting downwards. This way you know how much time is remaining prior to the ending of the section. Now for those of you who are good with maths, you can ignore this tip, but I felt that if you started from the last question i.e. q no. 46 and worked your way to q no 1, you start to realise whether your time management is good. I mean to say at 60.00 mins I am at q no. 46; by 30 mins I should be at least halfway down the line which makes it roughly at about q no. 23. Not sure whether you agree with me on this but this tip helped me a lot. I didn’t have to worry about how many questions I had left since the number I am currently on, is the number of questions left.

The next one is marking. So for this let me tell you of a strategy. You should train your mind NOT TO PANIC and to read through questions quickly.

Divide your question reading techniques into 3 rounds.

·         In the first round read the entire section and try to answer questions which you sure off (recall types). Skip ones you have no clue about, don’t worry about them now.

·         In the 2nd round finish off those which you feel you know the answer but are not yet sure.

·         Finally in the last round do all the questions, regardless of whether you know them or not, since touch-wood the USMLE currently doesn’t have any negative marks so what have you to lose by selecting an answer.

Now marking is both a boon and a bane. I feel marking can be used when you feel you know the answer but don’t have time currently. I mean it should be left for those questions where you feel that if you could just spend a little more time you will be sure of the answer. Like say for example the capital of Karnataka is Bangalore. Sometimes people may get confused thinking about whether is it Bangalore or Mangalore, since both are similar sounding and that way waste precious time (PS: I know it is Bangalore, I am only giving an example here) So here you mark the question and later when you have finished ALL the questions in the 3 rounds that I mentioned earlier NOW you come back to the marked ones.

The tips till now are purely exam oriented.

Now for revision purposes in U world.

While studying the answer to a question, you feel that you will not remember this question without another look, mark them now while studying. Since there is an option in U world where you can do questions which are ONLY marked, which will be easier for you towards the end when you have a lot of time constraints. This was one thing which I dint do which cost me a lot I guess.

Regarding the studying aspect, have already covered that in the Step 1 experiences post.

Feel free to comment.

Immunization schedule comparison

This Immunization table is based on a comparison of the National Immunization Schedule and the one recommended by the Indian Academy of Pediatrics. This table was done during my final year MBBS course. Feel this should help those students who just need a quick comparison between the two.

Age	National Immunization Schedule (NIS)	Indian Academy of Pediatrics (IAP)
Birth	BCG OPV 0 Hep-B 0	BCG OPV 0 Hep-B 1
6 weeks	DPT 1 OPV 1 Hep-B 1	DPT 1 IPV 1 Hep-B 2
		Hib 1 Rotavirus 1 PCV 1
10 weeks	DPT 2 OPV 2 Hep-B 2	DPT 2 IPV 2
		Hib 2 Rotavirus 2 PCV 2
14 weeks	DPT 3 OPV 3 Hep-B 3	DPT 3 IPV 3
		Hib 3 Rotavirus 3 PCV 3
IAP: 6 months		OPV 1 Hep-B 3
9 completed months to 12 months	Measles + Vitamin A (1 lakh IU)	OPV 2 Measles
12 months		Hep-A 1
15 months		MMR 1
		Varicella 1 PCV booster
NIS: 16 to 24 months IAP: 16 to 18 months	DPT B1 OPV B1	DPT B1 IPV B1
		Hib B1
18 months		Hep-A 2
2 years		Typhoid 1
NIS: 5 to 6 years IAP: 4 ½ to  5 years	DT	DPT B2 OPV 3 MMR 2
		Varicella 2 Typhoid 2
NIS: 10 and at 16 years IAP: 10 to 12 years	TT	Tdap/Td HPV

DPT: DTwP/ DTaP (w= whole cell, a = acellular)

NOTE:

·         Egg allergic: Do not give Influenza and Yellow fever

·         BCG: Saline, Catch up may be given up to 5 years

·         Measles: Distilled Water

·         Hepatitis B - Any of the following schedules

o   Birth, 1, & 6 months

o   Birth, 6 and 14 weeks

·         Rotavirus

o   The maximum age for the first dose in the series is 14 weeks, 6 days; and SHOULD end by 8 months, 0 days for the final dose in the series. 

o   Vaccination should not be initiated for infants aged 15 weeks, 0 days or older.

o   S/E: Intussusception

·         Typhoid - Only Vi-PS (polysaccharide) vaccine is recommended

·         Varicella - The risk of breakthrough is lower if given 15 months onwards.

·         Measles

o   Catch up vaccination beyond 12 months should be MMR

o   Measles vaccine can be administered to infants aged 6 through 11 months during outbreaks.  These children should be revaccinated with 2 doses of Measles containing vaccines,  the first at ages 12 through 15 months at least 4 weeks after the previous dose, the second at ages 4 through 6 years

Link for the Comparison

Immunization comparison