More sites

Tennessee - Chattanooga

Tennessee - Memphis

Vanderbilt University
Vanderbilt University

UT Southwestern- Dallas

U Texas - San Antonio

UT Houston

Christus - Houston

Utah

University of Virginia

Medical college of virginia

Wisconsin may now be integrated, not sure.
University of Wisconsin

More program sites

Pittsburgh has a site.

Pittsburgh

South Carolina has a site.

South Carolina

More to come later.

SFMATCH down today?

I think the SFMATCH site might be down today. Probably updating the program list would be my guess.

I met with my program director today to let him know a little bit about the plastics match and to expect correspondence from different people etc. He also offered to write me a letter which is great.

Yesterday I sent my verification packet off to the ABPS via certified mail. One more thing done!

Yet again more programs

North Carolina has a site.

North Carolina

Duke has a site but it was down for construction today.

Duke

Summa has a site.

Summa

Cincinnati has a site.

Cincinnati

Cleveland Clinic has a site.

Cleveland Clinic

Ohio State has a site.

Ohio State

Medical College of Ohio has a site.

Medical College of Ohio

Oklahoma has a site but very little info on the plastics fellowship.

Oklahoma.

Oregon has a site.

Oregon

Lehigh Hospital has a site.

Lehigh

Penn State has a program.

Penn State

Temple University has a site.

Temple

More sites

U of missouri has a site.

Missouri

St. Louis University has a site.

St. Louis University

Wash U has a site.

Wash U

University of Nebraska has a site.

Nebraska

Dartmouth has a site.

Dartmouth

Camden has a site.

RW Johnson - Camden

New Jersey Medical School has a site.

New Jersey Medical School

Albany Medical College no longer has a fellowship.

I could not find a site for Nassau County MC.

I could not find a site for Albert Einstein.

Columbia has a site.

Columbia

I think Mount Sinai may have converted to a combined program.

Mount Sinai

Could not find a site for NY Presbyterian hospital.

NYU has a site.

NYU

I could not find a site for SUNY.

I think University of Rochester is now a combined model.

Rochester

More programs

Emory has a site.

Emory.

Medical College of Georgia has a site.

MCG

Rush has a site, but little info. I will have to find out more later.

Rush

University of Chicago has a site.

University of Chicago

University of Illinois at Chicago has a site.

University of Illinois at Chicago

Loyola has a site.

Loyola

Indiana University has a site.

Indiana University

I could not find a site specific to Louisville Plastics, but I found their surgery page.

Louisville Dept. of Surgery

LSU has a site, but no mention of a fellowship, just a combined program.

LSU

Harvard has a website.

Harvard

Lahey Clinic has a site.

Lahey

U MASS has a site.

U MASS

Wayne State has a site.

Wayne State

Providence hospital has a site.

Providence Hospital

University of Minnesota has a site.

Minnesota

Mayo has a site.

Mayo

U of Mississippi has a site.

U of Mississippi

More program sites

UCLA has a website.

UCLA's website

University of Southern California at LA has a site.

UCSF - LA

UCSF has a fellowship listed in the directory but not on there site. I am not sure if they will offer a position in the match for the coming year.

UCSF

University of Colorado has a site but no mention of a plastics fellowship. Also I think they may have closed the fellowship and the sfmatch.org site is just out of date.

Colorado

University of Florida at Gainesville has a site as well.

UF Gainesville.

University of Miami also has a site.

University of Miami

A few more programs

I visited the UAB site today. Here is a link:

UAB's Fellowship.

I also visited the UC Davis website.



UC Davis

I visited UC Irvine's site, but there was not a lot of information.

UC Irvine.

Here is a quote:

RESIDENCY IN PLASTIC SURGERY

The Division of Plastic Surgery is directed by Gregory Evans, MD. The two-year program in plastic surgery accepts two residents each year. Currently it is planned to change the plastic surgery to a six year residency with two residents in each year. This will be phased in over six years. The training is conducted at UCI Medical Center, Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Long Beach, and the Children's Hospital of Orange County. A full residency in general surgery or a comparable program, board eligibility for general surgery, and a medical license in the State of California are prerequisites.

San Diego Program

I had a look at San Diego's website today.

UC San Diego

I am not sure if they still have a fellowship or not. There was no direct information about the fellowship so I am going to email Marsha Dodds, the administrator. I am not sure if she is the right person to talk to but maybe she can point me in the right direction.

mdodds@ucsd.edu

Meeting with the chief

I met with the chair of plastics on Tuesday. It went very well. He was very encouraging. There is not a plastics fellowship here anymore. We have entirely converted to a combined program.

The other thing I did was ask again for a letter stating that I have completed my internship. The ABPS credentialing service wants an internship certificate and we didn't get them, so a letter would be the next best thing.

I did a little online research and found out that Hopkins has a plastics fellowship but they don't participate in the match. I sent an email to request an application.

Link to the plastics fellowship at hopkins

I think now its just hurry up and wait until the CAS application arrives in July.

CAS applications

I called the CAS service today just to be sure that my letter requesting an application got through. It did and Perrine (the coordinator) sent out a letter saying that the application wouldn't be out until July. The August 1st deadline still applies, but your application doesn't necessarily have to be totally complete by that date. They just have to have your basic info and the programs you want to apply to and a check for X amount of money. The letters, transcripts etc. can trickle in as they may. Speaking of transcripts, here are some important details:

To get a transcript from Northwestern


Here is how to request the USMLE steps 1 and 2 transcripts:

How do I request that a transcript of my USMLE scores be sent to a third party other than a medical licensing authority if I have not yet registered for or taken Step 3?
Students or graduates of US and Canadian medical schools must send a written request to the NBME at the following address:

NBME
PO Box 48014
Newark, NJ 07101-4814

Include your name, social security number, USMLE Identification Number (if known), date of birth, your current address, and a telephone number. The fee for these documents is $50.00 for up to five transcripts, and $5.00 for each additional one, requested at the same time. Please specify exactly how many transcripts you are requesting. If no specification is made, only one transcript will be provided. Make your check or money order payable to the National Board of Medical Examiners; be sure to include it with your written request.

Sunday on call

I'm on call today so in between calls I am looking into different program websites. I got my sfmatch logon and password. There was a document in the password protected area that is somewhat reassuring. It gives statistics on the match over the last 11 years. At the top of the page is a quote from the director of the match:

"The shift away from the independent match to the integrated match appears to have run its course. The current statistics are very similar to the last four years. The match success rate remains approximately two-thirds."

Last year 241 people registered for the match and there were 110 positions offered. The year before there were 229 for 108.

A Saturday of Progress

Today I sat down and wrote the first draft of my personal statement. It wasn't very hard. I took a look at the personal statements I wrote for medical school and residency. I thought they were pretty good. They seemed honest and down to earth. The things I wrote in them were true and are still true today. They gave a snapshot of who I was at the time and where I wanted to go.

I just did the same thing this time. All of the mental work was done, it was just a matter of putting it down on paper.

The other development is that I set up a meeting with the chairman of plastics. It is for Tuesday at 4:30. I am on call that day so I have to be sure that I don't get distracted and forget.

Progress

3 developments.

1) SFMATCH called yesterday to confirm my registration. Logon and details forthcoming.

2) I have a meeting set up in the next few days with the chair of plastics.

3) I operated late into the night with my department chair last PM. I talked a little with him about the match. I let him know that he might be getting contacted by various people/organizations in the near future. I also asked him if he would be comfortable writing a letter for me and he said yes.

And so it begins ...

Friday June 4th the plastics match opened up. I had to be very diligent to see exactly when it would open by checking the sfmatch site.

San Francisco Match Page.

The first thing I did was to send of for a CAS application. This is the form that you have to fill out that is much like the NRMP applications that were sent out to all the different residencies when I applied. I sent a check for 50 bucks. Hopefully my application will get here soon, as the deadline for applying is August 1st, and I will have a busy summer.

The CAS Service.

The next step was to start working on getting the necessary evaluation of training from the American Board of Plastic Surgery.

American Board of Plastic Surgery Page.

That form basically asks for all of your rotations, the locations they were taken at, and the exact dates. I had to get copies of my schedules from the intern, second and third years from our residency program coordinator. I also had to make a copy of my diploma. The other thing that they asked for is a copy of my internship certificate. Our residency doesn't give one out until the end, so I am having my program director put together a letter that says I have completed my internship. They also want 150 bucks.

The final step was to actually register for the match. I did so by downloading the appropriate form from sfmatch. I filled it out and faxed it, along with credit card info to the number on the form. I did this on Saturday the 5th. They are supposed to send me a logon, password, etc shortly. They have not yet charged my credit card the 50 dollar fee. It says on the site that it takes usually about 48 hours to process the form.

Important Phone number: 415-447-0350 ext. 0.
That is the number for the sfmatch helpline.

Important email address: help@sfmatch.org.

Right now I am waiting for the letter from the program director so that I can send off my evaluation of training form. I am also waiting for my CAS application to arrive.

I am also trying to look at the web pages for the different plastics programs -

Directory of plastics fellowships.

One last thing, I asked one of my mentors for a letter of recommendation and I got some advice on where to apply.

I need to talk to my program director, because he will be getting some correspondence from the various places. It is a good idea to give the program director a heads up so that he knows what to expect. It has been a while since anyone in my residency program applied for plastics. I think that most programs require a letter from your program director.

I am also trying to meet with the Chairman of the Plastics Department to let him know that I am applying and to get some advice and possibly a letter.