01-28-2016, 07:06 AM
It still surprises me that at this point there are no mobile apps that cater to future residents. We still have to come on forums to get information and insights during the season. With almost 90% of AMG’s certain of a match, they get very busy with 10’s of interview and can afford to care less about forums. For most IMG’s, we spend all our time on forums from September till March, looking for information, comparing credentials, sharing interview experiences, invitations, rejections, finding people to carpool with, accommodate with or switch interview date with. The things we need to know is pretty obvious, most people want to participate in forums but when it’s time to share information they get scared because it’s a public place. Some are even scared that program directors or coordinators will penalize them if they reveal any information.
That said, I think it’s time we create a professional and befitting mobile application where we can confidently share information and help one another in a highly organized manner. Since no one has done it yet, I want to at least kick start the process, so that our siblings, friends or colleagues will have something better than we did. These are the features I am proposing for the new application.
1. Ability to add a specialty and have a list of the specialties that you are applying to.
2. Once you add a specialty, you will be prompted to add your credentials to join the specialty; no one will be able to see your credentials. Once you join the specialty, all people will see is the mean statistics for that particular specialty i.e the average usmle step scores, attempts, publications,LoR, USCE. Percentage of IMG’s, AMG’s, US IMG’s, non US IMG’s, visa status etc. Basically a summary statistics of every one that joins the specialty. This will provide great deal of real time insights to individuals applying to a particular specialty and help us understand where we stand.
3. If you get an invitation/rejection/acknowledgement, you can add that information (program name and date) to the specialty you are applying to, that way we can also have a statistical breakdown of the people getting invitations/rejections without putting their information out there.
4. You can request carpooling, accommodation splitting, and date swap when you add an interview date and people can respond by messaging you privately.
5. You can upload your interview experience at a program by simply checking some basic questions like, were medical questions asked? How many interviewers? Was the PD friendly? Any pre-interview dinner? Did they reply thankyou note? Were the residents friendly? Etc.
6. An interactive session with program directors and coordinator’s from time to time during the season. We pay thousands of dollars to apply to these programs and some of them can’t even send us a simple rejection email. I think we can use an app like this to get them involved and at least answer some questions we may have during the season, since most of them don’t like us contacting them.
7. Finally I want to create a program database/list that is simple and cheap. Some commercial list will tell us 60% IMG’s only for us to find out that most of those IMG’s are American’s that schooled in the Caribbean’s. I want a list that we can search programs by country of medical school of current residents, that way you can find programs that have residents that finished from your country and get in touch with them. We can create this data base by going to program websites, extract and organize the data. Finally, ditch those commercial lists that charge us $150 (Opportunists!)
8. At the end of each season, we will archive all the statistics by specialty and make it accessible to the next set of applicants. (So we don’t have to wait on NRMP match statistics)
I think we can achieve this before the next ERAS cycle and I need input from everyone that has gone through this process, lets at least make it better for the next people. Send an Email to info@studyinprogress.com with subject: INTERESTED, let me know what you think and the features you will like to see, I will send you a link to a mock up, and keep you informed. I am hoping we can get enough support to start a kickstarter to raise funds for this app. Thank you guys! In case you are wondering, I am a Non US IMG waiting for March 14th to know my fate, got 2 interviews and went bankrupt during the process lol, some of us were big name doctors back in our country and deserve at least a decent app that is respectable and efficient.
That said, I think it’s time we create a professional and befitting mobile application where we can confidently share information and help one another in a highly organized manner. Since no one has done it yet, I want to at least kick start the process, so that our siblings, friends or colleagues will have something better than we did. These are the features I am proposing for the new application.
1. Ability to add a specialty and have a list of the specialties that you are applying to.
2. Once you add a specialty, you will be prompted to add your credentials to join the specialty; no one will be able to see your credentials. Once you join the specialty, all people will see is the mean statistics for that particular specialty i.e the average usmle step scores, attempts, publications,LoR, USCE. Percentage of IMG’s, AMG’s, US IMG’s, non US IMG’s, visa status etc. Basically a summary statistics of every one that joins the specialty. This will provide great deal of real time insights to individuals applying to a particular specialty and help us understand where we stand.
3. If you get an invitation/rejection/acknowledgement, you can add that information (program name and date) to the specialty you are applying to, that way we can also have a statistical breakdown of the people getting invitations/rejections without putting their information out there.
4. You can request carpooling, accommodation splitting, and date swap when you add an interview date and people can respond by messaging you privately.
5. You can upload your interview experience at a program by simply checking some basic questions like, were medical questions asked? How many interviewers? Was the PD friendly? Any pre-interview dinner? Did they reply thankyou note? Were the residents friendly? Etc.
6. An interactive session with program directors and coordinator’s from time to time during the season. We pay thousands of dollars to apply to these programs and some of them can’t even send us a simple rejection email. I think we can use an app like this to get them involved and at least answer some questions we may have during the season, since most of them don’t like us contacting them.
7. Finally I want to create a program database/list that is simple and cheap. Some commercial list will tell us 60% IMG’s only for us to find out that most of those IMG’s are American’s that schooled in the Caribbean’s. I want a list that we can search programs by country of medical school of current residents, that way you can find programs that have residents that finished from your country and get in touch with them. We can create this data base by going to program websites, extract and organize the data. Finally, ditch those commercial lists that charge us $150 (Opportunists!)
8. At the end of each season, we will archive all the statistics by specialty and make it accessible to the next set of applicants. (So we don’t have to wait on NRMP match statistics)
I think we can achieve this before the next ERAS cycle and I need input from everyone that has gone through this process, lets at least make it better for the next people. Send an Email to info@studyinprogress.com with subject: INTERESTED, let me know what you think and the features you will like to see, I will send you a link to a mock up, and keep you informed. I am hoping we can get enough support to start a kickstarter to raise funds for this app. Thank you guys! In case you are wondering, I am a Non US IMG waiting for March 14th to know my fate, got 2 interviews and went bankrupt during the process lol, some of us were big name doctors back in our country and deserve at least a decent app that is respectable and efficient.