My second radiology invite - blackjack

[ArchivalUser]

hi blackjack,

mind sharing how you got the clinical & research experience in the US? i also need a visa. thanks

[ArchivalUser]

afoofa,

I applied to neuro, IM and RADs last year. But last year i did not have much to any of radiology on my resume. Regarding your SOP situation with prelim, try not to apply to neuro and rad in the same place. Neuro people know rad very closely; sometimes neuro rad faculty have dual appointments. You dont want to shoot yourself in your foot by applying that way. I used the neuro route to getting prelim IM at program that rank prelim IM seperate from their advanced positions. Coming to PS it really doesnt matter which route you take. As i mentioned earlier it is better for you to steal a prelim spot in lieu of ranking an advanced neuro position at that program than the radiology route where prelim spots are hard to come by.

maria80, it is easy. Have an email format ready not more than 300 words expressing interest in a specific area of radiology and start emailing people. I have posted somewhere about the specifics of how to search and where to search different research projects.

You will have to use NIH research awards web resources to identify potential PIs that offer you research positions. Trust me there are several out there. Try and choose male white american PIs who are 40-50 yrs of age and are assistant professors (not tenured) who would bust their asses to publish. Donot work under PhDs. They fight with each other for papers. They over promise about authorship to get work done. After getting the work done when you are gone, they say they wrote the paper and your will be the getting third or 4th authorship. Beware of PhDs!

[ArchivalUser]

thank you, blackjack. was your visa status an issue? did you do the research as a volunteer? do you have the link to your post regarding how to search & where to search for research projects? sorry for asking so many questions

[ArchivalUser]

hey blackjack, congrats on your interview! Will you have to sit out one year now, between finishing the prelim and starting rad?

I don't quite agree that PhDs are as you described them. It depends more on the person, than on the degree that they have. MDs can be jerks too. The advantage of working with an MD is that probably the LOR that you get from an MD (or MD,PhD) would be slightly more valuable than the lor from a PhD.

Also, one way to see how productive the PIs are is to do a search for their name on Pubmed.com and see how many papers they published in the last 2-3 years. True, there are many white american males in their 40s & 50s doing research, but other "demographic" categories can be equally productive. Don't use race/gender as a measure of someone's productivity and drive to publish. Just my opinion.

[ArchivalUser]

rei, your opinions are correct about the race/gender and age. However, I mentioned all those factors not with productivity in mind. The opinion I have about PhD is not just out of my own experience where I was promised first authorship and later denied after the work was done. This happened with another good friend of mine too. It is just a word of caution and am not passing a judgment on any PhDs; there are several great ones out there. You would not want to get into the same trap I got myself into now would you!

The whole goal for us is to get best bang for your buck. Less time more papers. On the other hand if you did not manage as many interviews as you wished, then you would need your research MD or MD-PhD to make some personal calls for you. I have made some personal observations that if your PI is a female and not white the PDs or members in the selection committees care less for the call that comes from them. This might sound silly but true. This happened to me last application season where I could not manage more invites and no matter how many calls my PI made I could not garner more invites. On the other hand, a buddy of mine with lesser scores and no USCE had better luck as his PI (a white American male) could push her application. While there can be an argument about the other PI being more well known in radiologist circles, no offense but my PI is the Ex ASNR president! and he is fresh out of fellowship. So gender bias does have a role in this scenario as radiology is a male dominated field. And productivity rates for publications really no correlation with the age of the PI but with the tenured professors generally not very research heavy, their junior non-tenured colleagues shooting for a tenure track are under the gun (who are generally in the 40-50s age range) to publish is what I meant.

maria80, i will search that link out for you. But I can do it tomm.

[ArchivalUser]

And maria80, I forgot to say that my visa was not an issue for volunteer research positions, which is what i have done. YOu would have to be diligent in emailing several PIs. You will get offers as many PIs these days are not very well funded for them to hire RAs to do the work.

[ArchivalUser]

Thanks blackjack...but I have already applied to as many rad programs as I can. I guess what I can do now is not to apply with rad prelim sop to places I am applying for neuro. What do you think.

Best wishes

[ArchivalUser]

thank you so much, blackjack. you can send the link to maria80.usmle

[ArchivalUser]

maria80, Sorry for the late reply. Have been consumed by my prelim year! I have sent you an email. I am sure the information will help you. And how are u doing with your invites.

[ArchivalUser]

hi maria80 and blackjack
many many congrats blackjack.......can you please send me the e mail for the link in this forum or direct links to search for some voluntary research work. i m interested in doing it but not able to find the right path to search it. my e mail id is drmanu97...........thanks and good luck