Career Advising

In the M2 Year, you will continue to meet with your Medical Student Advisor to craft your individual plan to secure opportunities and experiences to complement your medical education. You will continue to be encouraged to become involved in leadership, extracurricular, volunteer, and research activities, that help support your professional development before starting the rigorous third-year clerkships when your time becomes limited. Career Advising sessions will continue to be foundational and will include:

• Utilizing the AAMC Careers in Medicine
• Addressing Gaps in Your CV 
• Review of the MSPE Letter 
• Overview of 3rd-year Career Advising Program and Residency Application Elements 
• Maximizing Your Clerkship Experience and Clerkship Success 
• M3 panel tips for succeeding in your third year of medical school

Welcome to the M3 year! At this point in your education, you will start to seriously consider your specialty and career interest as you utilize the knowledge gained during the preclinical years to participate in direct patient care during your clerkships. Though exciting, it can also be a challenging time for any medical student, so support from your Medical Student Advisor becomes even more important. We are committed to demystifying the residency application process so that you feel confident and prepared while focusing on excelling in your clinical clerkships. Some of the Career Advising sessions will include:

• Overview of Residency Application Elements and Introduction to 4th Year Electives
• 4th Year Schedule Planning and Selection of Core Rotations
• Choosing Electives & Utilizing the Visiting Student Learning Opportunities Service
• Preparing the Personal Statement and Noteworthy Characteristics 
• Residency Application Strategy and Utilization of Applications and Tools
• Utilizing ERAS and Introduction to the Match and Specialty Matches
• M4 panel: Maximizing your electives, Tips and Tricks for Residency Application Season

At this stage, you will finalize your specialty choice, engage in complementary elective experiences, identify extramural opportunities at residency programs that you are interested in, complete your residency applications and apply to residency! Career Advising at this stage is focused on helping your craft a polished application, select residency programs that are aligned with your goals, and ultimately match your desired specialty. In addition to virtual sessions where you can get tips and advice from program directors in different specialties, the Career Advising Sessions will include:

•    Residency Selection Strategy and Review of ERAS application
•    Residency Interview Preparation Video 
•    Review of MSPE Letter
•    Mock Interviews and Feedback on Interview Performance 
•    Ranking of programs and the match process 
•    Navigating the SOAP Process and Q&A

The Medical Student Advisors and the Office of Student Affairs provide students with longitudinal, comprehensive career advising. We utilize a team approach to ensure that medical students have accurate, timely, and complete information to make decisions and select a career path that is a good fit. Some of the resources available to students include the Careers in Medicine Program, Specialty Interest Groups, AAMC, national specialty organizations, residency programs, and career advisors.  Career advisors are physicians trained in various specialties who can help medical students learn more about that particular field. Many also have expertise and training outside of clinical medicine so they may be able to suggest alternative career pathways in medicine.

Below is a list of the CUNY School of Medicine clinical faculty who have volunteered to serve as Internal Core Career Advisors. They are available to answer your questions about their clinical specialty, subspecialties in their field, and non-clinical experiences, and provide advice.  If you would like more information about a specialty not listed below, please reach out to your Medical Student Advisor or the Office of Student Affairs.

Students at the Sophie Davis Biomedical Education Program/CUNY School of Medicine organize and maintain a number of specialty interest groups (SIG) to more fully expose their peers to specific areas in medicine. These school-sponsored groups offer lectures, workshops, clinical experiences and mentoring. Through participation in the groups, students can become more knowledgeable about a particular specialty to assist in their career decisions. Please email the  SIG directly to learn more. Below is a list of the current groups and their contact information: