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Fourth Year Planning

Our fourth-year program includes eleven periods, plus a one-day Dean's Colloquium which is the Friday prior to graduation. All fourth-year students must take one four-week experience in surgery and seven four-week electives and the Senior Colloquium. Sixteen weeks must be taken on the student's assigned clinical campus in the fourth year. The required fourth-year Surgery course must be taken in state.

Some electives are unique to a specific campus. Students may choose to take one of these unique electives, which will count as a home-campus elective. These electives are numbered " 95**."

International rotations arranged through individual departments are not considered on-campus rotations.

Only two electives in a specific specialty area will be approved. If you want to take a third elective in the same specialty area, it will only be approved if it is the eighth elective (e.g., only two electives in Emergency Medicine, Neurology, etc.)

Electives by Campus

  • Fargo
  • Grand Forks
  • Bismarck
  • Minot

About 4 Year Planning

Most ideal time to sit for USMLE Step 2 is before September

Periods 1, 2, 3 are the best times to schedule home or away career choosing electives if undecided on a specialty

If you are committed to a specialty we recommend taking an elective or AI in that specialty early (periods 1, 2, or 3) so letters of recommendation are complete before ERAS opens

You should meet with the UND chairperson in your chosen specialty to request a letter of recommendation. A chairperson letter is important and is required for some specialties/programs.

  • Surgery – Dr. Sticca
  • Internal Medicine – Dr. Bande
  • Pediatrics – Dr. Tiongson
  • Psychiatry – Dr. McLean
  • OB/Gyn – Dr. Lutz, Minot (can be a phone meeting)
  • Radiology – Dr. Fogarty, Bismarck (can be a phone meeting)
  • Family Medicine – Dr. Schmitz, Grand Forks

Benefits of away electives:

  • Compare yourself to students at other schools
  • Best way test out a specialty in a different setting (ie ER @ Hennepin County).
  • May help obtain a residency interview…if you do a good job
  • Letter of recommendation from someone outside our school
  • Trial run to see if you would like living in a different area of the country, or which area?
  • Trial run to see what residents’ life is like at that institution

Benefits of home electives:

  • Familiar with hospital, faculty, and area.
  • Comfort in the environment will make you look more confident in what you are doing. Most likely get a good letter of recommendation.
  • Home faculty letters of recommendation in your career choice specialty are important
  • Faculty familiar with you will let you do more.

Possible liabilities of away electives:

  • Cost
  • Bad showing may cost you an interview

The Visiting Student Application Service (VSAS) is an AAMC application designed to streamline the application process for senior "away" electives at other U.S. LCME medical schools and independent academic medical centers that are members of the Council of Teaching Hospitals and Health Systems (COTH). This service requires students to submit just one application for all institutions, effectively reducing paperwork, miscommunication, and time. VSAS also provides a centralized location for managing offers and tracking decisions.

If you are not applying to an institution participating in VSAS, please use the Extramural Electives Compendium (EEC) for visiting student application information. The AAMC Extramural Electives Compendium contains information for medical students about elective opportunities at Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME) - accredited medical schools in the United States and Canada.

Periods 4 thru 6 are good times for away electives to check out residency programs (practice interviews). You may get an interview while you are there, or it may increase your chance of obtaining an interview in a competitive specialty. DO NOT take days off on an out of state elective. It looks bad.

Do not schedule your most desired interview as your first one…have at least one prior so you feel more comfortable.

Go to the Freida website for stats on a residency if you want to check it out before spending the money on a rotation, or interview later on.

You receive free access to CiM. Sign in using your AAMC Account. This is the same user name and password you created to sign up for the MCAT® exam, AMCAS®, and other AAMC services. If you need help signing in, use the tools in the sign-in box to recover your account information.

CiM is a four-step career-planning program that is designed to assist you in understanding your options for choosing a specialty and selecting and applying to a residency program to meet your career objectives.

May/June is the timeframe to start working on your personal statement.

Click here to view samples

Visit the AAMC site for tips, strategies and templates to craft your CV.

The Letter of Recommendation Portal (LoRP) enables LoR Authors and/or their designees to upload letters of recommendation (LoRs) to ERAS for distribution to training programs, at the request of applicants.

In the MyERAS application, applicants generate a Letter Request Form (LRF) for each LoR they are requesting and they provide the relevant author with the form. Authors and/or their designees use the unique Letter ID on each form to upload LoRs for applicants. A designee may not be a member of the hospital in an advising role or medical school staff supporting in the application process.

To access the LoRP, you will need an AAMC account. If you already have an account, you may use your existing user name and password to log in.

An AAMC guide with several helpful resources.

The Match

We will schedule a meeting post-Match (current fourth year students will attend as well) to discuss interview advice and strategies sometime in late March or early April.

Main Residency Match Data Reports

Early match for Ophthalmology and Plastic Surgery.

Urology and Specialty Matches

Here are some links that you may find helpful in career and residency site choosing:

www.aamc.org/cim Careers in Medicine website has information on career choosing, how competitive you would be for different career choices. Information on different specialties..

www.sfmatch.org (Information on early match programs – ophthalmology, plastic surgery)

www.auanet.org (Information on urology – early match program)

www.nrmp.org (statistical match information)

Southeast Campus Office
Room 118
1919 N Elm Street
Fargo, ND 58102-2416
P 701.293.4107
kristi.hofer@UND.edu

 

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    School of Medicine & Health Sciences

    1301 N Columbia Rd Stop 9037
    Grand Forks, ND 58202-9037

    701.777.2514

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