Just a quick note to International Medical Graduates: Residency Tokens for ERAS 2012 are now available. You can use the token to register with AAMC’s MyERAS starting on July 1.
Visit the ECFMG ERAS Support Services website for instructions on how to get your token.
In crafting your AMCAS or ERAS activity descriptors, make sure you write formally. By that I mean write in full sentences and avoid contractions and colloquialisms. The AMCAS and ERAS are important documents that deserve respect!
Also, ensure your descriptors – without going over the character limit – can stand alone from the activity title in case the reader skims through the latter. In other words, assume the reader has not read the organization and title before your prose.
Contact me for editing help.
Starting July 1 IMG residency applicants can reach ERAS Support Services through extended hours Monday through Thursday 8a-6p EST and Friday 8a-5p at 215-966-3520. Remember too that applicants can get some questions answered by e-mail at eras-support@ecfmg.org. I’ve emailed the ERAS Support Services before, and they respond relatively quickly. If they don’t have your answers, they’ll point you in the right direction.
As soon as June 1 hits, I have a multitude of medical school candidates panicking about the urgency of their application submissions. Plan ahead! Good writing takes a long time.
Even if you have a super-fast editor like me on your side :), you should expect that you will revise your materials multiple times and that each revision will take you many days or weeks.
Residency applicants: Take note. Start working on your written materials now, as some of my organized clients have already done.
“You say it’s urgent
Make it fast, make it urgent
Do it quick, do it urgent
Gotta rush, make it urgent
Want it quick
Urgent, urgent, emergency
Urgent, urgent, emergency
Urgent, urgent, emergency
Urgent, urgent, emergency
So urgent, emergency
Emer… emer… emer…
It’s urgent”
Here’s a NYT op-ed piece about learning to write concisely, an important skill in the admissions process.
Dr. Finkel is a graduate of Stanford University and Harvard Medical School. On completing her residency at Harvard, she was asked to
stay on as faculty at Harvard Medical School and spent five years teaching at the world-renowned Massachusetts General Hospital.
She was appointed to the Assistant Residency Director position for the Harvard Affiliated
Emergency Medicine Residency where she reviewed countless applications, personal statements and resumes. Read more
