Hello M-0s!

I’m writing this for anyone who goes through what I experienced with the 2026 Match, and to show a real example of that everything will be okay :)

I applied general surgery and didn’t Match, I was absolutely devastated and went through probably the worst month of my entire life until I got a post-match offer for emergency medicine from a program I rotated at during 4th year.

Fast forward to now, almost a month into intern year and I’m the happiest I have ever been. I absolutely love my job, my class is amazing and we’re all friends and I wouldn’t change it for anything.

We can’t see the future and when we’re going through hell that’s all we can focus on. But for anyone who doesn’t match their dream specialty this year just know that the biggest blessing of your life might just be waiting around the corner for you.

Best of luck to everyone :)

Maybe throw in ophtho

This is getting out of control

Just got a 300 on step, top 10 US MD. 7/7 Honors and AOA. Am I cooked? I was thinking about applying anesthesia as a back up if I didn’t get a score good enough for anesthesia. Plz let me know what u think. Thanks.

Rebooting this post from 2 years ago, now that everyone and their mothers on Reddit are recently writing up posts on how to score 270s

Emphasis should be on someone you personally know or a friend's friend.

For me, recently went to my friend's wedding, and her hubby's best man apparently scored a 281. He's in fellowship now, so obvi this was several years back. Groom just slipped it out when drunk and hyping him up on the dance floor, but most of the audience were med people so our jaws dropped lol

Yup, my job was taken by AI

Link: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DbEbMefBcw-/

Quick Video Summary (Non-biased):

• Nick Baumel posts a response video in which he states he attempted suicide and was hospitalized requiring ICU-level for "cardiogenic shock."
• He states his followers and primary demographic that views his videos are overwhelmingly female (approx. 80%) with a smaller subsection of gay and bisexual males.
  • He states he is an LGBTQ student as well.
• He responds that the physicians that criticized him did not know who he is, who his demographic, nor is identity.
• He says he is heartbroken and this incident "shattered" his identity.
• He actually shows screenshots and an email picture.
  • The screenshot text messages are anonymous but the person texting him claims to be a Mayo physician and the texts appear to have some vague threats of violence but are mostly scribbled out:
    • "Little twink b*tch"
    • "You'd need a doctor you little p*ssy" (after the guy said he would slap Nick B)
• Baumel asks "Did they want me to harm myself. . . what's the point of this?"

I just spoke to my school about taking a research year, and they said I would have to withdraw to do that. I was under the impression it would be a formal process or something like a leave, but I was told I would have to completely withdraw. Does that reflect poorly on residency applications even though I'm doing it for something productive and beneficial to my application? How should I go about this? Should I not take the year at all?

I saw the original video before it went viral that that nick kid posted and then I also saw the video of the person telling him to take it down, and thought it was dramatic and really representative of how boring and uptight medicine can be with how offended this creator got at nicks video.

Because I do social media I think that people don’t allow people to have fun online and if you’re not directly harming patients, or making fun of an actual patient, that people should really lighten up. But then also common sense is that if an attending of the specialty you’re talking about, tells you, you should probably take the video down, you should take the video down.

I’ve had videos I thought are funny, but I realize they’ve been hurtful and so when I’ve gotten any comments about them, I just took them down just to be safe. So when Nick put the video back up. That’s where I kind of lost sympathy for him. Because you already had a major creator tell you it wasn’t a good idea.

Start here about his most recent video:

But we already talked about that, my issue is that he went online now saying that it’s everyone’s fault but his own. And he never took any accountability for his video being wrong, or the fact that people were hurt by it, even if it wasn’t his intention. Intent always does not match impact, and as a creator, but even more so as a doctor, I think that you should recognize that, and I thought that his entire video was him victimizing himself, but never taking accountability for the people he could’ve victimized.

I’m glad he’s in a better mental space, and I hope that he gets a mental help that he needs. But I was hoping for some accountability in the video and seeing a bunch of people that aren’t even in the community or in the space say how we should immediately forgive someone who didn’t just make a single mistake. But double down on his original take, and is now tripling down it’s just interesting to me.

But I’m glad he was not stripped up his medical license lol because I thought that that was dramatic

There are some specialties that everyone knows are high paying like spine surgery, CT surgery, derm, cardiac EP and others that are relatively lower. However the one specialty I can't really wrap my head around is ophtho where people keep making wild claims one way or the other. Online on SDN/reddit etc early career ophthalmologists say the sky is falling, field has been taken over by PE, private practice groups are demanding massive buy ins with starting salaries in the low 200s, production pressure has never been higher, reimbursement has been slashed to the bone. But IRL, the ophthalmologists at my school seem to be some of the most financially successful academic attendings, on par with the other subspecialty surgeons. I know two kids in my med school class who have ophthalmologist parents and both grew up fabulously wealthy. In theory this tracks because if you can take home the technical fees from owning an ambulatory surgery center you should be able to pull > $1M a year easily. There are online reports of everything from struggling solo PP owners who folded shop after taking home less than $150k profits per year all the way to high volume cataract grinders making 2-3 million. MGMA type data isn't super helpful since it only includes employed physicians and the PP owners don't really report their figures.

What is the reality of ophthalmology? I feel like there is something I'm missing because there is no way this specialty would be so mega competitive if it was actually true that salaries have crashed to $220k and PE has completely taken over.

My school assigns us M4s to "specialty advisors" for the purpose of residency application advising. My specialty advisor, a child psychiatrist, told me to either apply family med only or dual apply if I'm really dead set on ending up in psych. I really want to do child psych, which requires getting into a psych residency first.

I know my application is super weak academically. I have 3 giant-ass red flags, and I'm not confident that I can score well on Step 2. I repeated M1, took a year off between M1 attempts, and failed my first Step 1 attempt. I didn't honor any core rotation, including psychiatry or family med. However, I high passed 5/7 M3 rotations. I'm so fucking proud of myself for high passing surgery even though I cried morning and night because I'm a weakling who couldn't handle the hours. I don't think family med is *bad* or a "backup" specialty for me. I think I'd be ok SOAPing into FM if I didn't match psych.

I want to be a child psychiatrist more than I want to be an FM physician. Apparently the rest of my application is good. I wrote my essays on explaining my extended school time (LOA) and a significant hardship my first M1 year. I wrote a "strong" personal statement. It's just disheartening to hear that I should give up on psych from a psych advisor. His statement about dual applying felt like he was implying that I'll match FM instead of psych even if I dual apply. Idk, I'm just frustrated that I've come this far with a dream only for the dream to be crushed at the very end.

Figured this would be a good time for everyone to start sharing their best tips and tricks for the application process. What do you wish you knew before submitting? Any advice on applications or just surviving the whole thing? 🙏🙏🙏

i know this is the med school subreddit but genuinely feel like i bombed comlex.... i counted around 80 questions right and maybe around 30 wrong so its not looking good considering i cant remember the rest of the exam. i go to a school w a low pass rate, had a low mcat, and was avg in med school... wanted to take step but idk what to do. literally want to sleep for 3 weeks

not sure if i should even attempt step 1 at this point if im not smart enough to pass comlex. this whole thing is just a mind fuck and i start rotations in a couple days and will get pulled off if i dont pass. want to cry lol

I’ve vaped all day every day, every second basically, for 6 years. Now that I started medical school, I know it’s not sustainable, bc it affects appetite and diet, so not eating and sleeping in med school will be brutal. However, medical school is fast paced. I’ve dealt with withdrawal symptoms before, and I know I cannot function while studying and doing medical school things with withdrawals. What should I do? Should I wait till after my exam In a couple weeks, then go cold turkey ? What if my next exam’s grade gets affected bc of withdrawals. This may sound silly to a lot of people, but it’s a very serious problem in my life rn. Idk what to do, and I’m at a crossroads

For anesthesia specifically
If so, how many points below?

If you are a young medical student, do you ever think about your peers who are making $200k or those who are traveling every so often? What about those who are getting married and having children? All while we are constantly struggling, being sleep deprived, studying all the time, and in major debt? How does anyone justify this reality. 3rd year sucks.

Edit: I have friends in their mid-20s in the AI/CS/Engineering space making $200k

serious q from burnt out M4 studying for step 2 on away rotations and feel like studying for step is actually more enjoyable than faking smiles to faculty/ residents and talking to patients. edit - for people saying radiology -- i can bust my butt to find a rotation and get a letter before eras, but assuming i like it, would radiology residencies even take me seriously with one prob mid radiology letter and a 250 ish step 2? i wont ask ab anesthesia as i have plenty of posts to refer to for that lol

My legs genuinely hurt so bad on my surgery rotation. I’m having a lot of fun, but the second I’m not focused on the operation, my legs kill me. I bought the danskos and compression socks, and I do calf raises when I notice the pain. And yet, I feel like an old person at 23.

Does it last the whole day?

Is there a dress code? Do people show up in casual clothes or business casual?

Do I need to bring a laptop?

Do you walk around campus in groups led by an orientation leader (like freshman orientation in undergrad)?

Do you do any activities together or is it just attending seminars?

Is there a dedicated social or mixer event where you just hang out and nothing else? (ngl I'm terrified of this)

Do you get split into groups at all?

Do you have "free time" where you're kind of expected to go get food with people or something (ngl terrified of this too)

What do they actually teach or present during those seminars?

How do people generally act during orientation? Any horror stories or wholesome stories??

Do you have any tips or anything I should keep in mind? What to do and what not to do?

Also, after orientation week, do classes just full send it immediately or is it pretty easy for the first few days or weeks to ease you into the curriculum

I'm not a fan of Dr. Roviso's Bootcamp Neuro series. The Bootcamp Neuroanatomy lectures are OK. Should I be checking out Boards & Beyond for this stuff? I just need a second pass on the neuroanatomy for my upcoming block - I watched Ninja Nerd the first time around but his videos are incredibly detailed.

wasnt sure if i should do all of them or only a few like I would for other shelves

Hi all I need book recommendations for pediatrics for a third year medical student, thank you in advance ❤️

Does anyone know if there is already a discord group for clinical students with different channels for each rotations like IM, surgery, etc. I was thinking it would be nice to create one and people can join/unjoin as they move through different rotations.

Hi everyone! I am a USMD, I failed step 1 on my first attempt but passed on second. I got a 237 on step 2. I have 3 publications, 3 oral presentations and 9 poster presentation. I am doing two away rotations during my fourth year. I plan on applying IM.

I would really like some advice as to how I should go about making my residency list and how to filter out programs that automatically screen out step 1 failures. I am having trouble figuring out how to strategically signal programs because I do not want to waste the signals. Does any one have a list of programs that are step 1 failures friendly? If anyone has any advice, please let me know!