Pearls of wisdom for aspiring physician-scientist residency applicants and program directors

Abstract

Postgraduate physician-scientist training programs (PSTPs) enhance the experiences of physician-scientist trainees following medical school graduation. PSTPs usually span residency and fellowship training, but this varies widely by institution. Applicant competitiveness for these programs would be enhanced, and unnecessary trainee anxiety relieved, by a clear understanding of what factors define a successful PSTP matriculant. Such information would also be invaluable to PSTP directors and would allow benchmarking of their admissions processes with peer programs. We conducted a survey of PSTP directors across the US to understand the importance they placed on components of PSTP applications. Of 41 survey respondents, most were from internal medicine and pediatrics residency programs. Of all components in the application, two elements were considered very important by a majority of PSTP directors: (a) having one or more first-author publications and (b) the thesis advisor's letter. Less weight was consistently placed on factors often considered more relevant for non-physician-scientist postgraduate applicants - such as US Medical Licensing Examination scores, awards, and leadership activities. The data presented here highlight important metrics for PSTP applicants and directors and suggest that indicators of scientific productivity and commitment to research outweigh traditional quantitative measures of medical school performance.

Figure 1. Institution affiliations, characteristics of programs, and leadership involved in evaluating postgraduate physician-scientist trainees.

(A) Histogram depicting the number of new residents per year recruited to internal medicine and pediatrics physician-scientist training programs (PSTPs). (B) Histogram showing the total number of physician-scientist trainees in internal medicine and pediatrics PSTPs (bars represent groups of 5, grouped as 0–4, 5–9, 10–14, etc.). (C) Schematic representing faculty leadership who most commonly review internal medicine and pediatrics applications submitted to PSTPs through the Electronic Residency Application Service (ERAS).

Figure 2. Importance of academic performance — publications and funding.

Responses of internal medicine (n = 24) and pediatrics (n = 9) physician-scientist training program (PSTP) directors to survey questions are shown as stacked bar graphs. PSTP directors were asked to rate each item as very important (dark blue), fairly important (light blue), important (gray), slightly important (light orange), or not at all important (orange), as shown. (A) Importance placed on publications. (B) Importance of obtaining or applying for funding.

Figure 3. Board scores and clinical performance.

Responses of internal medicine (n = 24) and pediatrics (n = 9) physician-scientist training program (PSTP) directors to survey questions are shown as stacked bar graphs. PSTP directors were asked to rate each item as very important (dark blue), fairly important (light blue), important(gray), slightly important (light orange), or not at all important (orange), as shown. (A) Importance placed on US Medical Licensing Examination scores. (B) Importance of medical school grades. (C) Importance of other medical school awards.

Figure 4. Letters of support and other factors considered important.

Responses of internal medicine (n = 24) and pediatrics (n = 9) physician-scientist training program (PSTP) directors to survey questions are shown as stacked bar graphs. PSTP directors were asked to rate each letter of support as very important (dark blue), fairly important (light blue), important (gray), slightly important (light orange), or not at all important (orange), as shown. MSPE, medical student performance evaluation.

Figure 5. Personal statement, leadership, citizenship, and future plans.

Responses of internal medicine and pediatrics physician-scientist training program (PSTP) directors on the subjects of personal and other experiences (A); US citizenship/immigration status (B); and career plans (C), are presented as stacked bar graphs. PSTP directors were asked to rate each item as very important (dark blue), fairly important (light blue), important (gray), slightly important (light orange), or not at all important (orange), as shown. Note that n = 23 internal medicine PSTP directors responded to the questions on “Thesis topic is relevant to the clinical field of interest” and “Impact of personal statement.” There were n = 24 internal medicine respondents for the other questions and n = 9 pediatrics PSTP director respondents.