Please be advised the following Q+A was conducted prior to the consensus recommendations by the CPA, so some answers may reflect the program's expectations prior to the announcement. Please take that knowledge into account when reading the following answers.
This interview was included in our Q2 newsletter. If you are a medical student member of CalACEP, you should be receiving our newsletters. Please let us know at calemramsc@gmail.com if you aren't and need to be added to our listserve!
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What is one thing you want to tell students about your program?
Harbor-UCLA: At Harbor-UCLA, there are plentiful opportunities to work with leaders in the field of emergency medicine while taking care of a rewarding patient population. There is dedicated time on every shift for teaching, a relatively small number of clinical faculty so you get to know everyone, and excellent relationships with other services. Above all else, our patients are the reason we're excited to come work everyday.
Stanford: Our program guides residents in their journey in Emergency Medicine with exceptional clinical training at three sites (academic, community and county experience), and offers an innovative personalized professional development using our Advanced Clinical and Career Enrichment Line (ACCEL) Program to allow our residents the opportunity to discover and pursue the career of their dreams.
LAC + USC: The mission of our residency program centers around developing exemplary emergency clinicians and delivering the most comprehensive, high quality patient care to our East Los Angeles community.
UCLA: UCLA EM is committed to not only creating excellent clinicians, but also to providing the resources and mentorship necessary for residents to develop expertise in an area of interest that is their passion within Emergency Medicine.
UC Davis: We are a program that supports diverse interests and backgrounds
What sets your program apart from others in California?
UCSD: Diversity of training sites with the most opportunities to explore EM niches
Harbor-UCLA: You can have it all - live blocks from the beach, take care of critically-ill patients, and serve an underserved population
UC Davis: 3-year academic site with multiple training settings and great people
UCLA: Our true 50/50 clinical split between Ronald Reagan, a large academic tertiary care center, and Olive View, a safety net county hospital, allows residents to fully experience all practice environments. Additionally, our extensive elective time allows residents to truly explore all facets of Emergency Medicine throughout their 4 years of training.
LAC + USC: Every program has its own unique missions and goals. Our program's major areas of focus are as follows: (1) Setting the highest possible standards for clinical training through a model of graduated responsibility and patient-centered, compassionate care; (2) Development and continued growth of a dynamic medical education program; (3) Focus on social determinants and community engagement; (4) Fostering a diverse and inclusive environment; (5) Promoting best practices for Resident Wellness & Resilience via strong peer support and strong social connections; (6) Fostering resident professional development and supporting scholarship throughout residency training.
Stanford: We are grateful for the resources that we have at Stanford including the most number EM fellowships in the country, which allows us to provide guidance and expertise in several EM careers.
NOTE: This survey was initially sent out prior to the consensus recommendations by the CPA, so some answers may reflect the program's expectations prior to the announcement. Please take that knowledge into account when reading the following answers.
We also included a question about whether it would be necessary or advisable to do an away rotation, even if it was later in the season. Again, this was prior to the announcement, so we anticipate that programs may have different answers at this point in time. We hope to have an answer to this question in the future, but it may also depend highly on the individual program and applicant. We recommend reaching out to a trusted advisor in EM for your specific circumstance.
How many SLOEs do you anticipate will be required before offering an interview? Additional SLOEs = more competitive? What if MD/DO/IMG? With/Without home rotation?
Stanford, LAC + USC, UCLA, UC Davis, Harbor-UCLA: Given COVID-19 pandemic, we anticipate requiring one SLOE.
Harbor-UCLA: Given the COVID-19 pandemic, DO/IMG students who have no home rotations should include more (non-EM/SLOE) clinical letters than those who are able to secure 1 or 2 SLOEs if possible.
UCSD: 2 SLOEs. No additional SLOEs.
UC Davis: Including additional SLOEs may be beneficial if they make the candidate more competitive.
UCLA: We will also consider applications without a SLOE under special circumstances.
How does your program anticipate interpreting SLOEs if away rotations are severely limited or restricted?
Harbor-UCLA: There are data suggesting that students get better grades on their home SLOE than away SLOEs, but the reality of the situation this year is that many students may not be able to do away rotations. The comparative measures can be slightly affected therefore, but as always the general distribution of the SLOE grades and the comments are the most important aspects to us.
Stanford: Core clerkship evaluations may need to be weighted more.
What type of non-SLOE letters would be most helpful in evaluating an applicant to your program?
Harbor-UCLA: Whoever knows you best and can say something important about you. We do not look for specific specialties, etc. but people who know you well and longitudinally (whether clinical, research, or extracurricular)are likely to write more insightful non-SLOE letters than people you only had a 3-4 week interaction with.
UCLA: Letters from EM physicians (non-SLOE) are the most impactful but letters from other critical care specialties (trauma surgery, anesthesia, ICU) or a core internal medicine rotation would also augment an application.
Are there any specific rotations or electives that students can take to strengthen their application if they are unable to do an away rotation?
UC Davis: Specialty SLOEs (US, PEM, Tox).ICU rotations are strong as well.
UCLA: ICU, anesthesia, trauma surgery, ultrasound, toxicology, Pediatric Emergency Medicine (PEM)
Harbor-UCLA: None that would strengthen their application. I always recommend trying to do a bedside ultrasound rotation at your home (or away) because it is an important skill and a great time to pick it up.
If a previously scheduled EM rotation is cancelled or converted to a virtual curriculum, how could this be addressed on our application? How would programs view any evaluations or SLOEs from such a course?
Harbor-UCLA: We are not planning on offering a virtual curriculum that would result in a SLOE because there would be insufficient evidence to grade someone's clinical abilities. Programs that will do this and write a SLOE will have to be very specific in their grading criteria and what the students were able to do on the rotation.
UCLA: This will likely be officially addressed in your MSPE but we would recommend asking your school directly if this applies to you. SLOEs will be more difficult to interpret without clinical evaluations but will still provide valuable information.
How can one show interest or personal ties in your program if an away is unavailable? What do you feel is an appropriate avenue to share this information?
Stanford: The personal statement is an important area for this. Likewise, as we explore innovative ways of recruitment efforts--virtual tours, virtual meetings, we look forward to the opportunity to meet more candidates from across the country.
UCLA: You are welcome to email us if you have particular interest in our program. We value hearing from our applicants! You could also consider individualizing your personal statement to particular programs of interest.
Harbor-UCLA: It is reasonable to e-mail and express interest in the program and state why you have a specific interest. Generic interest e-mails are often unhelpful, but if you have a very important tie to the area that we cannot tell from your ERAS application, that could be helpful information (e.g., spouse moving to the area, family, grew up in the area, etc.).
UC Davis: PDs, APDs, CDs, and Program coordinators were inundated with emails last year. If you want, send us a well written, old fashioned business letter we can put in your file as to why you are interested in UCD. This could be routed to the faculty member that reviews your application.
Will a Step 2 score be expected prior to submitting ERAS or make your application more competitive compared to prior years?
LAC + USC, Stanford, UCLA: Not required or expected, but may be helpful.
UCSD: Yes, Step 2 expected prior to ERAS.
Harbor-UCLA: No. Step 2 score will be required for ranking students in early February. Taking Step 2 early is helpful if you think you can (1) improve on your Step 1 score, and (2) your Step 1 score is not competitive. If both those statements are "yes" then taking Step 2 early is advantageous.
How will Step 2 be weighted vs Step 1?
LAC + USC, UCLA: In general, we tend to value Step 2 scores over Step 1 scores as the exam is more clinically relevant.
Harbor-UCLA: In general, programs will often look at the more favorable score, but it is helpful to have them both be strong of course.
Will there be a larger emphasis on 3rd year grades? How would a mandatory pass-fail system play into this consideration?
Harbor-UCLA: Yes. In general, PDs find the MSPE (which is a lot of 3rd year performance), Step scores, and SLOEs as the most highly-rated in importance. If there are less data in one domain (such as SLOEs), it will likely shift the importance to the other domains. Pass/fail schools will make it more difficult for us to know the student's performance in the absence of SLOEs, because then they will have less objective comparative clinical performance data.
UC Davis: Complex question.No good answer.Every school is different in how they grade, their percentages of honors, etc.A mandatory pass-fail system is difficult to interpret and makes it hard to stratify applicants.Same as a system that gives 80% honors.
Stanford, LAC + USC: For pass-fail systems, we rely on the narrative included in these evaluations.
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[Included in our Q2 newsletter. Editor: Tiffany Fan]
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