Kenneth V. Iserson's Blog

Completely updated, the 9th edition of Iserson's Getting Into a Residency: A Guide for Medical Students, now with coauthor Richard Amini, M.D., will continue to be vital to medical students. Packed with tips and practical information for ALL FOUR YEARS of med school, it could be called “How to Get the Most Out of Medical School” or “How to Succeed in Your Medical Career!” This unique book provides invaluable information about all the medical specialties, including the difficulty of obtaining a position and the number of available slots. Numerous charts illustrate the specialty selection process, updated URLs provide additional sources of information, and the "Must/Want" Analysis provides a way to rank residency program selections.

Topics include: • What specialty is best for me? How will I know? • Should I take a transitional internship? • Where can I get information about specialties and programs? •To which programs should I apply? •How many applications should I send? • How do I complete applications? résumés? personal statements? •What special problems will I encounter if I am a woman? minority? IMG? osteopathic graduate? older physician? couple? physically impaired? •How do I prepare for the interview? How do I dress? o What questions should I ask? What shouldn't I ask? •What questions will they ask me? How should I answer? • What matching program do I use? How do they work? How and when do I apply? •How do I choose between programs? •After I match, then what?

Do these questions sound familiar? Whether you are a premed student, a medical student, or a physician who needs to get a residency or fellowship position, YOU NEED THIS BOOK!

Completely updated, the 9th edition will continue to be vital to medical students. Packed with tips and practical information, it could be called “How to Get the Most Out of Medical School” or “How to Succeed in Your Medical Career!” This unique book provides invaluable information about all the medical specialties, including the difficulty of obtaining a position and the number of available slots. Numerous charts illustrate the specialty selection process, updated URLs provide additional sources of information, and the "Must/Want" Analysis provides a way to rank residency program selections.

Topics include: • What specialty is best for me? How will I know? • Should I take a transitional internship? • Where can I get information about specialties and programs? •To which programs should I apply? •How many applications should I send? • How do I complete applications? résumés? personal statements? •What special problems will I encounter if I am a woman? minority? IMG? osteopathic graduate? older physician? couple? physically impaired? •How do I prepare for the interview? How do I dress? o What questions should I ask? What shouldn't I ask? •What questions will they ask me? How should I answer? • What matching program do I use? How do they work? How and when do I apply? •How do I choose between programs? •After I match, then what?

Do these questions sound familiar? WHETHER YOU ARE A PREMED STUDENT, A MEDICAL STUDENT, OR A PHYSICIAN WHO NEEDS TO GET A RESIDENCY OR FELLOWSHIP POSITION, YOU NEED THIS BOOK!

McGraw-Hill has finally renewed its discount price for:
Improvised Medicine: Providing Care in Extreme Environments (Paperback, 578 pages)
20% discount at $43.20 (Less than Amazon price)

http://www.mhprofessional.com/promo/i...

Enjoy!

How do international medical graduates overcome the barriers they face in getting into a U.S. residency program? Free videos on the IMG process and multiple similar free videos are available at: http://on.fb.me/10hPPTQ.
Taken from the new (8th) edition of Iserson's Getting Into a Residency: A Guide for Medical Students, the "bible" that generations of students have used to successfully obtain the residency of their choice.

This year (2013), nearly 600 U.S. medical students failed to get a residency position through the NRMP Match. That is 310 more students left without a residency than in 2012.
These students went through the entire, anxiety producing, time-consuming, and often expensive process of completing residency application paperwork and traveling to distant cities for interviews. Yet, on “Match Day,” they were left at the altar.
Often, these students made errors in the way they went through the process of selecting a specialty, choosing appropriate training programs, completing the paperwork, and “performing” in their interview.
Eventually, all of them will probably find a residency position, probably not in a specialty of their choice—and possibly for no longer than one year, during which they will have to repeat the entire process, hopefully with better results.
Going through the entire process in a manner to achieve a medical student’s (or resident applying to a Fellowship) desired outcome is the basis of the best-selling “Getting Into a Residency: A Guide for Medical Students,” just published in its 8th edition (www.galenpress.com).
Hopefully, the next class of medical students will take advantage of this resource.
http://bit.ly/17iIQAd

When food became desperately scarce during the deadly winter of 1609, some Jamestown settlers began eating their dead. Horrifying news? Actually, no.
The internet and new media has been buzzing with the Smithsonian Magazine’s report of finding the cannibalized skeleton of a 14-year-old girl. Actually, we’ve long known from historical records that this occurred—and probably wouldn’t have been thought that unusual at the time.
According to Death to Dust: What Happens to Dead Bodies? (Tucson: Galen Press), what the Jamestown settlers did is termed “survival cannibalism”. This is different, and still is accepted as a necessity, as long as the situation is dire and the “victims” are dead. This practice differs from gustatory cannibalism, when you eat humans because you like the taste or from ritual cannibalism during which people must eat part of their dead relative or leader. Note that the first prion disease (Kuru) was first recognized through its appearance after ritual cannibalism in Papua New Guinea in the mid-20th century.
At the time the Jamestown episode occurred, survival cannibalism was a (usually) unspoken event at sea when starving sailors, becalmed for weeks or months, resorted to it as a last resort. This practice exists even in modern times, with the Andean plane crash survivors being the best-known example.
So, let’s not look aghast at our forbears for surviving any way they could, and using a technique that some people in dire circumstances still employ today.
(http://bit.ly/10A8525)

Three (3) free copies of the new, revised "Getting Into a Residency" 8th edition, will be given away by Goodreads.com

If you can't find the link, go directly to: www.goodreads.com/giveaway/show/50882...

Good luck!

The selection of a specialty is a more important career decision than that of going into medicine. Surprising? It determines what you will do each day, what types of patients you see, who you work with, how many hours you spend at work and on call, how much income you will have, how flexible you will be about changing jobs and location, and most importantly--HOW HAPPY YOU WILL BE WITH YOUR PROFESSIONAL LIFE.
The new edition of Getting Into a Residency (8th edition) discusses this in detail. Also, see the YouTube videos:

Choosing a Specialty-Part 1 http://bit.ly/118hKZS
Choosing a Specialty-Part 2 http://bit.ly/ZU4dIW

The easiest way to order the book is by going to www.galenpress.com or writing sales@galenpress.com. The book, if ordered from them ($31.95 plus shipping) will be sent out on April 25.

The significantly revised 8th EDITION of my popular book will be available about May 1.

The price has remained the same (#38.95 + tax/shipping) as the 7th edition, although it is now 680 pages!!

It is currently available for PRE-ORDER (individual copies or discounted bulk orders of 5 or more copies to the same address) through:

www.galenpress.com
(520) 577-8363
sales@galenpress.com
(520) 529-6459 Fax

After publication, it will be available through the Amazon web site as well as other sources.

ALSO: Check out the YouTube videos through this site or on YouTube. (Search "Iserson")or use the following URLs:

Choosing a Specialty-Part 1 http://bit.ly/118hKZS
Choosing a Specialty-Part 2 http://bit.ly/ZU4dIW
The Residency Interview-Part 1 http://bit.ly/116syYD
The Residency Interview-Part 2 http://bit.ly/XIlD9Y
The IMG Residency Applicant-Part 1 http://bit.ly/ZgoMfB
The IMG Residency Applicant-Part 2 http://bit.ly/10SrvKy
D.O. Residency Applicants-Part 1 http://bit.ly/10XyBig
D.O. Residency Applicants-Part 2 http://bit.ly/15apvmH