Electives at Mayo Clinic, Rochester USA

Lets first summarize the importance of clinical and research electives.........Electives can be taken in USA anywhere from your 3rd yr med to final yr, but do remember you are only eligible for it till u are a medical student.

Importance:

It is weighted very heavily esp in the USA.Its the only way of getting US Recommendation letters and would certainly help you in matching into the US residency syatem once you are done with ur steps

How to Apply

first of all find out if any of your close friends,relatives or any person has done an elective in a particular college/uni etc .Make sure u extract the entire information from that person and apply to the same particular place.

Secondly there is a site www. google.com.pk type Electives Compendium 2007 in the search tab.u will be directed to a site which shows all the medical colleges which offer electives in USA along with their specific requirements.Narrow down your application to atleast 5-10 medical colleges and apply early.

For Girls/boys not willing to take elcetives a good point

Even if you aint keen on spending all that money on electives or travelling abroad i think you still should apply. i personally know lot of ppl who have got a five yr multiple visa for USA simply for applying to a USA elective.So do have this thing in mind your chances of geting a US visa are 90% if you have an elective accepted.You can cash this visa in future when u will be really in need of it to take your clinical part of step2 and for your interviews for the job.

My Experience at Mayo CLINIC Rochester

I did my elective at Mayo clinic in 2005.They now have a different application criteria and require a valid step 1 score before you can apply for the elective.So Getting into Mayo is really difficult unless you have already taken your step 1 in final year.I benefited a lot from the elective. I got 4 LOR(letters of recommendation) and managed to schedule a research elective with a professor in cardiology .Now i have an article by my name in journal of human hypertension jan 2007 edition. My input was only for one month in the research thing but it has paid me greatly in the form of a publication.So do keep in mind any little thing which you do, makes you little different than others and offcourse gives you an edge.
For those who are willing to ask me more about how to apply can contact me on tameemulhassan@hotmail.com or leave me a message on my ayubians account. I would love to address any querries

Here is a list of a few colleges one should definitely apply to as most have no application fee
1.Albany Medical College
2.Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University
3.East Tennessee State University James H. Quillen College of Medicine
4.Emory University School of Medicine
5.University of Connecticut School of Medicine
6.University of Cincinnati College of Medicine
7.University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas Southwestern Medical School
8.University of Texas Medical School at San Antonio
9.University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston
10.Baylor College of Medicine
11.Mayo Clinic,Rochester,MN
12.John Hopkins University(Only schedules research electives)
13.UCLA California

thank you very much for the information.but which dept did u go to? and wat time did u do your research work. i am in my final yr and have not done any research work and i dont have any time for that now.