A simple guide to electives for international medical students

                                                   A simple guide to electives

Hi,

Many USMLE aspirants will be looking for opportunities to improve their CV for residency and a good step to start is to apply for an elective in United states. Getting an elective is getting tougher  day-by-day. Believe me , applying for an elective is a pain in the ass without proper guidance. I  personally did not know where to start and what to do, when I was applying for an elective. 

Here are a few tips for students applying for electives from my side:

Why electives?

Electives are useful for residency application in many ways. 

• Doing an elective is a a very good opportunity for international medical students to improve their CV for residency.
• You will get a chance to have Hands-on-experience which is very difficult once you graduate.
• You will be able to get Letter of recommendations from top-notch US professors.
• Chance to make Contacts. You will understand how important it is to have contacts , once you start applying for residency.
• Getting in touch with the  US health care. 

How to start?

• The basic requirement for most of the electives in United states medical universities is that you should be in your final year of medical school and must have completed some basic rotations in your med school. In countries like India and Pakistan, we have 1 year compulsory internship and it will be considered as the final year. 
• Plan and start ahead. Many universities will start accepting elective applications 6 months ahead of the start date .Target the months of Nov- May. This is the time where most international medical students gets accepted.
• Recently, many universities made Step 1 as their basic requirement. There are still few universities accepting students without step 1. Try to write Step 1 as soon as possible. But, at the same time, dont rush and risk your score. Step scores play more crucial role in residency than electives.
• Some programs like NIH, northwestern etc. dont require step 1. They prefer TOEFL score. Plan to write TOEFL ahead of the application. Focus mainly on the "speaking" section of TOEFL. Keep in mind that toefl result takes at least 3 weeks and to get score report by hand , it takes another 1-2 weeks. 

Now with the application.

•  Think of your career goals. If you are planning for Internal medicine, select electives related to Internal medicine (sub-specialities of Internal medicine). If you already have a choice of fellowship in a sub-specialty in mind, make it as first choice in your elective application.
•  After you made a choice, search for programs offering electives. Some electives dont require a tuition fee. Some even dont have a application fee. Make them as your first preference. 
•  Some good websites to search for a list of universities offering electives are Umar tariq.com, prep4usmle.org, usmleforum.com.

In the mean while, get some basic documents ready, which are required for almost every elective application :

 A) Personal statement: It is a letter written in your own words, describing
- how you developed interest in the field of medicine and what your career goals are

- how this elective would be helpful for your career

- Remember. Write in your own words (Dont copy from google ;-) )

B) CV - It is a Resume mentioning all your achievements. 

- Dont use fancy colors or unnecessary fonts. 
- Make it look simple and straight forward. If you dont have many achievements in medical school, dont worry. That is fine.
- Make sure to include all your achievements , because even the extracurricular activities are important.

C) Your medical school transcript.

D) Letter of recommendations from at-least two of your professors at medical school.

E) Malpractice insurance. Good website to get malpractice insurance for electives is academicins.com

F) Health insurance.

These are the basic documents required for almost every application. So try to keep at-least 5-6 copies of each document.

What next?

• The next step is to make a list according to your preferences and eligibility.
• After you made a list of the Universities that you are going to apply, search each website and make sure you have all the documents in hand. Try to send a complete application with all the documents at once.

Some additional tips:
- For people applying from India, DHL is a good choice to courier the application. They have a discounted price, if you say that you are applying for US university.

After you apply:

Dont send constant emails asking for your application status. Keep your fingers crossed and wait for the decision.  
Dont get disheartened if you dont get an elective.Remember, electives are very competitive. if you dont get an elective, It doesn't mean that you cant get a residency. Acceptance in elective depends on many additional factors: timing, availability and luck factor. 

All the best!

Please post your valuable comments. Thanks!