MS3 Class Information – March 3, 2022

MS3 Career Planning Reminder as Open Registration Begins

Your career advisors are available to meet with you regarding specialty planning and your E&F schedule. Please make your specialty-related schedule changes on the earlier side of Open Registration, where possible.
• Answers to most student questions can be found in the Guide to 4th Year Planning.
• Remember to review the Clinical Phase Planning section of the Specialty Guides.
• For those who have been recommended or considered parallel planning or dual applying, make sure any related course(s) are also in your summer schedule.

Careers in Biotech

The AAMC subcommittee, Training Opportunities for Physician Scientists (TOPS), invites students interested in applying to research residencies to learn more about Careers in Biotech. This virtual session will take place Thursday, March 10, 2022 from 4 to 5:30 p.m. AK, 5 to 6:30 p.m. PT, 6 to 7:30 p.m. MT. You can learn more and register here. Recordings will be available after each session here for those who do not register for the webinar.

Career Advising Support as You Prepare Your Away Rotation Application Components

If you missed the national VSLO Student Webinar: Away Rotations 2022-23, hosted by AAMC, the webinar recording is now available. You will hear from a panel of host institutions to gain a better understanding of their review and decision-making processes. The panelists provided insight and useful details and strategies about away rotations during the discussion.

For those of you preparing to apply to Away Rotations, utilize Career Advising’s resources:

  • Review Career Advising Curriculum Vitae (CV) resources. Use the provided videos, suggested CV template, and editing checklist. Once your CV is updated, join a weekly CV review group session for personalized feedback. These occur every Friday from 12-12:30pm PT.
  • Review Career Advising Personal Statement resources. To guide your writing, use the provided videos, brainstorming worksheet, editing checklist, and example statements.
  • Most host institutions will require a letter or letters of recommendation (LoR) as part of your application. Read each host institution’s application requirements carefully so that you understand how many letters each institution requires. When requesting a letter of recommendation from a physician, follow the instructions and use the Request Form provided by thge UWSOM Registration team.
  • General information about LoRs, from the perspective of residency applications, can be found on the Career Advising LoR resource page.

Activate Your TexasSTAR Access by March 15: National Residency Match Data Set

TexasSTAR is a national resource used to demystify the residency application process. This tool allows you to review specialties and programs, and to compare your profile against students who received interviews and matched to programs in your specialty. It is built from an annual survey of fourth-year students at more than 110 medical schools, administered by the UT Southwestern Medical School. To activate your access to this tool, you must click on the “Activate” link in the TexasSTAR email by March 15, 2022.

  • You only have 29 days from the Feb. 15 send date before your access expires. Since TexasSTAR is NOT controlled by UW, we will not have the ability to give you access later.
  • Your user account and password are linked to your UW Net ID: xxx@uw.edu; the password is the same as your Net ID password.

For tips on how to use the TexasSTAR, please review our Career Advising’s TexasSTAR Tutorial video.

Read the info below carefully to fully understand the email you received about TexasSTAR:

  1. The email was sent Feb. 15 from Microsoft Power BI with a subject of “Bo Wen has shared Power BI Report ‘Texas STAR Dashboard 2021’ with you”.
  2. This is a legit email and NOT spam. Check your junk/spam/clutter if you don’t see it in your Inbox.
  3. You have 29 days from the Feb. 15 send date to activate your access. We will not grant access to anyone if you miss it. The link you received is unique to you.
  4. Once you activate your link it will stay active until the end of April 2022. At this point the 2021-22 data set is retired and you will receive a new invitation in May/June to access the updated 2022-2023 data set.

For any issues accessing TexasSTAR, please refer to this guide

Career Advising Student Advisory Board – Tip of the Month

If you’re applying to away rotations, a lot of this work will be super useful for once you start your residency application! Regardless, review Career Advising’s steps to prepare for residency application to set you up for success this application season. Scattering this prep early on will save you a lot of stress when you’re trying to focus on important rotations (like Sub-I’s in your chosen field).

If you’re still feeling uncertain about fourth-year schedule strategy, ask your Career Advisor or Specialty Career Advisor to go over it with you.

Written by Career Advising Student Advisory Board member Shanelle Briggs and reviewed by a second BIPOC Board member, L’Oreal Kennedy.

In case you missed it:

Here is a link to the Feb. 24, 2022 Student Newsletter information for MS3s.