From the Kinked Wire By Marie Hamel and Viknesh Kasthuri, MD Episode 69: How to Match


Keep an open mind. I came to med school determined to keep my options open. I would recommend, even if you’re excited and interested in IR, to make sure you check everything out. There’s a lot of wonderful fields in medicine, and it behooves you, as a mature learner, to explore everything to make sure IR is the right field for you.


In this episode, host Marie Hamel and guest Viknesh Kasthuri, MD, a resident at the University of Virginia School of Medicine, discuss all your burning questions about the match process.


Check out some of Dr. Kasthuri’s top tips below, and listen to the full episode at irq.sirweb.org.


Listen to the full episode for additional advice about:


• Requesting letters of recommendation


• Signaling tips


• How to review data on institutions and application rates


• Making the best of your preliminary year


• Navigating DR programs as an IR applicant


• Interview preparation, and more.


I loved all my rotations, but I realized that in IR, I don’t have to give anything up. I can treat everyone from pediatrics to geriatrics and work across body systems. Fundamentally, IR is about taking expert-level anatomy skills and a flexible set of tools and applying them in creative ways to solve problems for patients.


Make the most of your rotations and clerkships. I've noticed some folks will go into their core clerkships and think they don’t need to put in much effort, because they won’t ultimately practice in that area. I think you’re shortchanging your education, because eventually those skills may be needed. You'll find that you can apply all the skills that you learn in your core clerkships to the modern IR practice.


Engage with your home IR department. If you’re able to, engage with the IR department at your medical school. If you have a local program, get involved and see if you can get some shadowing experience. The preclinical years are a great time to shadow a lot of different fields because there is no expectation for you to perform. It’s just exploration, and a great way to get your feet wet and see what the day-to-day looks like for any given field.


Attend networking opportunities like the SIR Annual Scientific Meeting. The SIR Annual Scientific Meeting is a great place to network and take in a lot of med student programming. Everyone is really friendly and willing to help. IR is such a small community, and a lot of the people you meet at SIR may show up on interviews or end up being your co-residents. It works in your favor to make those connections and build your IR family early on.


Don’t skimp on away rotations. I know it’s well established that you should do at least one away rotation, but a lot of folks do three, even four, now. And a lot of people end up matching at places they do those rotations, because they get a chance to understand the program. If you’re there for a month, you get a sense of daily practice in a way that a few Zoom interviews can’t prepare you for.


Use every resource. You can always reach out to residents. Residents and fellows are always happy to chat with applicants, and you can ask for 10 minutes of their time to get a sense of what the program looks like, as well as see if they have any advice.


Prioritize fit over prestige. Obviously, there's no perfect program, right? And unfortunately, there's no published data on many of the aspects of a department that would be important for potential applicants. So much of the intel is learned through word on the street and rotations. So that is why it’s important to start early to get a better sense of what things are important to you, and what programs may be worthwhile.


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