 So what do you need to know before applying to residency? Today I'm going to give you my top six tips on how to do well on your residency application cycle. We're going to get to those tips after this intro. All right guys, what is going on? Lux here from the MD journey, helping you succeed on your medical journey with less stress. Today is a super exciting video because now I'm officially done with all of my residency interviews and with that excitement I wanted to share with you my top tips I've learned throughout the cycle as well as tips that I've gathered through my peers and things that I wanted to give any of you guys a one day be on the application cycle for applying to residency after medical school. So let's get into those tips. But before we do, if you are new to this channel, let me again introduce myself. My name is Lux. I'm a fourth year medical student applying into internal medicine here in the United States. I have been helping medical students as well as pre-meds for the last two and a half years and the MD journey has just been my resource to help you succeed with a little bit less stress through my successes and my failures. And so if that message resonates with you, please I urge you to at least like this video, watch the rest of it through and then join the community by subscribing to the channel. But without further ado, let's get into the tips. So six tips that you need to know before you start applying to residency. And some of them are things that you can do much earlier before even ever applying. And some of them are things that you can do throughout your actual application cycle. So let's get into those tips. So tip number one is that your step one score is much more important than you think. And this is not really a tip, but it's more of a notice for anyone that hasn't taken step one through just talking through my peers back and forth throughout various specialties. You realize that although we all know, you know, step one is a very important test and we try to do well when you actually get to the residency cycle, when you start to compare which interview offers that they got versus you, you realize that sometimes it's just a matter of scores, especially amongst two applicants that have pretty similar applications, they just may have different step one scores. So if you want to set yourself up nicely, I urge you, especially if you're first or second year medical student, to work as hard as you can to make sure that that score is as high as possible. Because just a little bit points, you know, this way and your favor can really make the difference of getting a few more eyeballs in your direction and giving you a little bit more doors of opportunity. So, you know, if you haven't taken step one, please do take it seriously because you do realize how important it is when you start to get residency offers that you may not have expected, or you may not hear from programs that, you know, you really want to, you just don't want a number to kind of be in your way. So again, that's not only advice from my own experience, that is advice from a lot of my classmates. And so I just urge you, if you haven't taken the test yet, to please take it as seriously as possible and do as best you can. Now, with that being said, if you have taken the test, I also promise you that, you know, a grade that may be not in your favor is not going to harm you completely. You know, you are still going to have your doors of opportunity to just keep your chin up. And there are plenty of other ways to improve your application. And I can make a totally different video on that in the future. So if you want that, make sure you comment down below on whether or not you want me to make a video on how to do well on your residency application, even with a low step one score. But for now, I'm just going to say your step one score is much more important than you think. So tip number two is a tip that I like to give that is going to allow you to just crush the whole interview process. If you struggle with kind of selling yourself and finding a good balance between humble and, you know, being too cocky, if you want to find that balance, or if you think that sometimes you're too scripted or sometimes you just are, you know, finding a blank, you have no idea how to answer questions. This method, which I call the 10 question method or 10 experience method is going to work very well. So tip number two is to use the 10 experience method. And this is how it basically works before you ever go on your residency interviews, or even if you're a med student or a pre-med applying to medical school, this works perfectly for you as well, which is come up with 10 different experiences that you want to talk about or that you can turn to. And this is how I like to break them down. I'm going to assume your medical students. So first three are going to be experiences that you had with a patient, things that are memorable, things that you've learned. Usually we can find at least three patient experiences that really spoke to us and what we learned from them. The next two would be things that, you know, maybe a patient experience or interaction with a colleague or an attending that you struggled with and you kind of got through, you know, it was, it was more of a what you can consider to be a setback and not a success, something you can go to when somebody asks you a question, such as tell me about a hard time you have with a patient, you can go to those questions. So the first three are experiences that were great with the patient. The next two are experiences that maybe that you struggled a little bit and you learned something from them. The latter five are things such as pick two experiences that can give a good example of what you want to do in the future. For example, if the question is why do you want to become an orthopedic surgeon, have at least two examples of why, you know, that's direction for you and your future. If you have those experiences already in the back of your mind, it's easy to answer that question. Other things are two, you know, very successful things that you've done for yourself that can speak to your character or two to three. So if someone tells you, you know, what are you most proud of? You already have two to three experiences that you can talk about. So quickly just for visiting the 10, you're going to have three experiences that are going to be about patient experiences that went well, two experiences that may have not started well, but maybe you overcame and you learned something, two things that kind of two experiences that can speak to your future goals and then two to three experiences that can speak to your strength while being humble. So if someone asks you what are your strengths, you can say, you know, I'm a great listener. I had a patient experience that went like this and then finished the story. So the way this works is that if you have your 10 experiences, you write them down, you give them some thought, regardless of what the question is, guys, you can usually go back to at least one of those 10 and speak to them. So it's a great way to not seem scripted and still have a great sense of direction and always have those as fallbacks to try out the 10 experience method if you feel like you struggled during your interviews. So tip number three, guys, we're going to talk about how to save money. Residency interviews are expensive. They can be anywhere from hundreds of dollars, if not thousands, when you account for all the travel as well as application fees. And so you need to know where you can start saving some dollars here and there, ideally more than a couple of bucks. And so some great ways are, you know, make sure that you start acquiring some points on a credit card if you have good credit and if you're responsible with your money. One thing that I did when I started medical school is I opened up a credit card called the Chase Sapphire Preferred card. It basically allows you to get a few round-trip tickets just for signing up and using some of your typical expenses that you would on the card. Basically what I would do is I got this card when I was a second-year Met student. It came with 50,000 points because I, you know, put three months of expenses on it, which allowed me to get the 50,000 points. That was about two to three round-trip tickets. And then every semester, I would put very thing, you know, expensive things that I had to buy anyways for school, my tuition. Luckily my school didn't charge me any percentage fees for using a credit card, my rent, things that didn't charge me a fee for putting it on my credit card. I would put on my credit card and then pay off immediately. So I would start a racking up points. Got to the point that now, you know, fast forward to my fourth year medical school, I had so many points that I didn't have to pay for a single flight. Recently I went to Colorado with my fiance for both an interview as well as a vacation. And we were able to pay for both of our flights via my points. So, you know, it just speaks volume. If you start planning early, you start doing these little tiny things and just start racking up points, you can save yourself hundreds, hundreds of dollars. So those are some great ways to save some money. Other things are, you know, make sure if you have friends in a nearby area, you know, ask them if you can stay with them, borrow cars if you're able to rent for cheap. Avoid doing some common things such as, you know, staying at hotels or paying for Ubers if you don't have to. So make sure you're trying to save as much money as possible during your residency cycle. Obviously, you know, it's worth the money to apply to the places you're interested in. But if you don't need to apply to 70 programs, don't apply to 70 programs. So, lots can go into saving money. I can make an entire video about this subject, but just make sure you understand that it's important to save a few dollars and there's some great ways to do it if you start planning a little bit early. So let's get into the last three tips. So tip number four is to be thankful and grateful. I cannot tell you how many times on my residency interview trails I have seen a student that just made me scratch my head on what they were thinking. I've seen things such as students who have been texting while the program director is giving their presentation. I've seen people fall asleep during their lecture. I've seen people who talk a little bit about too much about their school in front of the residents and the faculty. You know, you want to be humble guys. Remember that they want you to potentially come to their residency program. And so, again, be thankful, be grateful, and don't be a jerk. You know, comment that sounds like common sense, but sometimes I've seen countless examples, almost all my interviews of someone misbehaving. Make sure that's not you because it gets around. Make sure you're nice to the residents, the administrative staff, as well as the faculty that interviews you. Be gracious. You know, you consider this a potential home for you. And act like this is actually a place you want to go, even if there's a place that you prefer even more. They've given a spot just to talk to you and you want to make sure that you give them respect for that time that they're providing. So be thankful, be grateful, don't be a jerk. So tip number five, and you guys can watch my video, which I'll link down below about my first residency interview, is make sure you are keeping notes. So as you go through the residency interviews, guys, regardless of what specialty you're in, you realize that most programs start to kind of blend together. You can't really remember which program you liked for what reason. A lot of them will have some of the hospitals, similar call schedules, whatever it may be that's important to you. They may start to blend. And so you want to make sure that you capture your first impression, shortly after your interview. And so simple things that I like to do is create an Excel sheet, and every column is something that I hold important. So it may be location, it may be the call schedule, it may be the residence that I talk to, it may be things such as opportunities for future career goals. For each of those things, have a column for each of those, and then give them a score. You know, it can be one through five, one through 10, whatever it may be, and have the schools on the left hand side. So each row would be a school. This way, you're able to give a number for each thing that's important to you and see what the total sum is. So if you're having trouble at the very end, coming up with a program that you really want to go to, you can just see how your numbers kind of tell you which programs you prefer. So make sure you keep track shortly after each of your interviews, and then just keep updating it after each one, especially if you go on more than 10. The programs really start to jumble together in your heads, and so you want to have a nice way of understanding which programs you really enjoyed shortly after the interview. So make sure you're keeping track of each of your interviews and interview days. And the final tip, guys, and this is, again, me kind of ending with a little bit of motivation is to enjoy the process. Residents' interviews can, on the surface, be very stressful, and we get it. Like, I get it. You know, you're applying for a job, I'm applying for a job, and you want them to want you as much as you want them. And so all that feelings can lead to a lot of stress, a lot of anxiety. But at the surface, you know, understand that any interviews that you get is basically them telling you they consider you to be a potential resident at the program. They potentially want you, they could see you thriving at their program. And so enjoy that process. When you go to a new city, enjoy the city, explore, ask questions about the residency program, make sure you're getting to know the goods and the bads, and just enjoy it. You know, you're going to be fine. You're going to go to a place that's going to be your future home. And so don't dread about being at a specific program. You know, we all have our aspirations. We all have our ideal goals. But make sure that the whole process is not leading you to dread your future. You want to enjoy this. You want to see the potential of where you could be. Meet some of your potential future colleagues, your future interns. Enjoy that process. And I've enjoyed it. You know, I went on 10 interviews this cycle, and they were all great. I enjoyed all the programs that I went to, enjoyed meeting the people. And I can remember in a good light, I didn't feel that stressful aurora that comes from that atmosphere of applying to residency. So make sure that you enjoy the process from start to finish. And when match day comes, regardless of what that envelope says that you're going to, you're going to be happy with that decision. All right, guys. So those were my six tips on how to do well on your residency application cycle. Hopefully you guys enjoyed them. I've learned a ton throughout this experience. Hopefully at least one of the tips resonated with just one of you watching this video and makes your residency application cycle a little bit less stressful. And make sure you enjoy the process. If you guys have any more questions about the residency application cycle, regardless of what specialty you're thinking about going into, comment down below. And I'd love to make another video while the experience is still fresh in my mind. But with that being said, I'm going to close this video first. Make sure you give this video a like if you enjoyed what you heard. And subscribe to the channel and join the community. I think the last video we officially crossed a thousand subscribers. So first of all, thank you so much for being part of the MD journey. I do feel like I'm talking to each and every single one of you one-on-one when I make these videos. So hopefully you can see that on the other side of the camera. But with that being said, I'm going to stop mumbling like I always do. Make sure you like and subscribe to the channel. And I will see you guys, friends, in the next video. Take care, guys.