During his third year at Harvard Medical School, student Jesus Trevino spent a month on a clinical rotation in an emergency room and discovered that he was captivated by the challenges of emergency medicine.
“It totally caught me by surprise,” Trevino said.
After his rotations, the south Texas native took some time to earn an MBA at MIT. Now, back at HMS as a fourth year medical student, Trevino was at this year’s Residency Advisor Reception, an informal gathering in the Courtyard Café where students preparing to apply for residencies can meet with resident advisors, residents and clinical faculty from nearly two dozen clinical specialties at HMS-affiliated hospitals and health systems.
With faculty from many of the top residency programs in the nation seated at tables decorated with banners denoting their specialties, Trevino had a chance to find out whether the allure of emergency medicine was still strong.
“I’m looking at the other signs and nothing else is calling my name,” Trevino said as he surveyed the room, adding that he found the opportunity to talk with emergency medicine residents and advisors and to hear more about the resident application process to be especially helpful after taking some time away from medical school.
In addition to being a great way for students to investigate potential specialties for their own careers, having all the specialties together in one room emphasizes the interplay between different fields, faculty members said.
"Medicine is more fun when we get to work together with colleagues in other fields," said Steven Schlozman, HMS assistant professor of psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital. “This event exemplifies and promotes the increasingly collaborative nature of medicine.”
Students who were still exploring multiple options said that they were excited to have an opportunity to talk to representatives of various specialties. In addition to discussing the intricacies of the application process, students asked about lifestyle issues, what a typical working day in various specialties was like, and about the challenges of balancing academic and clinical work.
“The third year of medical school is like a buffet table,” said Joe Li, HMS associate professor of medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. “You get to try a lot of different things.”
The reception provided students with a chance to think more about their options and to focus their career path, and, hopefully, to begin to build mentoring relationships, Li said.
The Jan. 21 event, which was organized by the Office of Student Affairs and the Program in Medical Education as part of the Roadmap to Residency, followed a more formal afternoon presentation where the process of selecting and applying for residency programs was outlined.
