My USMLE journey, challenges, and the importance of peer groups.

I recently matched in pediatrics, but the residency match journey was not without challenges. I will tell you about what challenges I overcame and how I built my profile for pediatrics for a successful match. So I will start with an overview of my journey, and then, we'll step into specifics.

I come from AP in India, and I did my MBBS at Manipal University Kasturba Medical College, Mangalore. I graduated around four years ago. After graduation, I believe the toughest phase of my life started with the toughest phase of my career.

I started with, of course, as you may all know that this is one of the toughest, most challenging exams that we have given in our entire lives, which is USMLE, step 1, And step 2 CK, I took quite a bit of time for that time to give both exams. I've also given my Step 2 CS exam in the pre-Corona era. And after that, I finally managed to apply after four years of studying. And since my second year, almost since the time I was always interested in pediatrics. I knew that pediatrics is a specialty I wanted to be in. Though there are other specialties I like, pediatrics was always my dream. So from the very beginning, I made sure that my goal and whatever I did was in terms of pediatrics.

In India, whenever I worked I made sure there was a pediatrician there and there were a lot of pediatric cases in that particular hospital. I made sure that I had good exposure to pediatrics. And of course, this work experience, whenever I told them in my interviews, they were very impressed by it because very few applicants usually have good pediatric experience. Having a home country experience is important and will add weightage to your profile.. This pediatric work experience is one place I truly connected with them. And on top of that, pediatrics is a place where relatively fewer applicants apply.

I felt that this journey was a little lonely till I joined Sarthi. I found very few pediatric applicants throughout the journey. So whenever I tried for USCE,  I was the only rotating intern in almost all of my USCE programs. And I was happy after I found one rotation through Sarthi. It's one of the excellent rotations. I used to see more than 30 pediatric patients in Detroit. I learned a lot about pediatrics there. And after that through emails, I did a few in New York. I worked for more than four months as a pediatrician in New York. And that helped me fetch a few more interviews, especially from the region.

One of my first challenges was with exams. After I finished my graduation, I had to move to my home. And the one thing I've learned from this journey is a very tough battle that we need to fight, and fight along with our peers. It's very important that we won't take this challenge upon ourselves alone. It becomes very 10 times tougher than it is. I tried for one year studying all by myself with very few friends around me. I made sure that I met a group of friends doing the same thing, which made my journey much easier.  For me, the group studying worked, though we were not necessarily studying in the group, at least having peers around us helped me overcome all the challenges that I had with giving the exams.

I was able to take the exams and pass the exams. 

Secondly, of course, USCE, it's always challenging, especially because many of my USCEs were in the Corona era. Especially in pediatric hospitals, they're not allowing foreign graduates to rotate with them. It was a bit difficult, but I had to send them my CV to send them my work experience. And of course, Sarthi helped me. 

They helped me with one of the rotations. So overall I tried my best to learn as much as possible with the experience. It was mainly in the clinics and well with very few inpatient rotations. I tried to make the maximum out of it by comparing, learning the treatment, and all that by staying extra time, during the USCE. 

The peer group and the importance of peer groups in this journey. One of the best things about Sarthi is the telegram group is that there are so many people who are fighting the battle just like you are, and there are also, people who have already fought the battle and own that there are panelists there, who there Dr. Htun, Dr. Patrick, and Dr. Dhaya, some of the panelists to name truly, helped us out a lot with many of the questions they answered. Many of the questions throughout the journey, especially the ERAS application, are very long and it's very confusing. We need to know how to, what points to put in a CV, for instance, what points to highlight and how to do it.

Interview Preparation - what are the cases you will find in the hospital? Be prepared for such questions. Where you can show how you connected the child and his parents. Being relatable, being personable is important in pediatrics. you need to show the interviewer that you can connect with the patient easily.

Try to be relatable, try to be more personable. And obviously, for pediatrics, you need to have a very softer personality, a hard interior. That's what I always think about what pediatrics truly is.

CV - In the CV, you need to know a few tricks and trades as to how to put your best self forward to show maximally, show what you can do in the program and what they're going to be useful, and how the programs are going to find the particular quality of us useful.
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You need to build the basics and obviously, Sarthi will help. They built a lot of my interview basics and 75% was Sarthi and the rest of the 25%. I added my own unique flavor to it which truly helped me.