A transitional year surgery student here at Union who is a Saba grad has matched in opthalomogy. This is the second Saba student who matched in Opthamology this match. The other student can be looked up on the Saba.edu web site. This student however did the National Average on the Boards but DID take off for a year to do research but the bottom line is he got it. 99% of Optho spots have gone to US grads in the last 4 years so it goes to show you what an accomplishment this is. From what I have seen is that if you can get involved with research in some capacity and be published this is almost as important as board scores. Competitive residencies which are usually based in University Programs practically expect some degree of research. This is particularly true in residencies like Derm, Optho, and Radiology. My advice to all incoming Saba students that are looking toward these types of residencies definitely want to score high on the boards but may benefit from contacting Universities and investigating research program oppurtunities. I personally have run into some stumbling blocks because by the time I looked into some research programs I was already a 3rd year student and many research programs at medical schools want 1st and 2nd year students. This may sound absurd but because I am a third year I have been shut out of many that I have inquired about. this is one problem with going abroad to Saba because the first 2 years you really cant do any research. I know they were talking about getting some going and if there is some going on now my advice is to get involved because this will look good on the ERAS application. There is an entire section on the application devoted to research and if you have something to put there it can only help you. Possibly the Hyperbaric program on Saba is doing some sort of research but if there is something there, GET INVOLVED it will only help. I wish I had. Best of Luck, Scott Jones DC MS III
Posted on Oct 30, 2002, 9:02 AM from IP address 207.19.126.2
