Career and Professional Development
Overview of the system of career counseling for medical students
The school of medicine curriculum is divided into three phases. Career counseling is provided throughout all phases of the curriculum.
During Phase 1 in the Fall, a workshop introduces students to the AAMC’s Careers in Medicine platform, including a brief real-time tutorial of the AAMC website so students can navigate the site with ease. Monthly, students have the opportunity to attend a career lunch and learn series, where various specialists visit campus and speak about their career and path within medicine. Each session is accompanied by an informational handout with common questions regarding training, job satisfaction, and work-life balance. Curriculum vitae (CV) and networking workshops are offered annually, along with a school of medicine CV template available on the student resources page in Canvas, an online platform that allows access to class coursework. Students are offered individualized CV reviews as well as counseling about the development of a professional social media profile for their future residency application. The career team is available to meet one-on-one with students for any career advising needs. The office partners closely with the student interest groups to allow students to explore specialties. Students are matched with career mentors upon request.
During Phase 2 of the curriculum (corresponding to the second and early third years of medical school), career advising shifts to focus on career fit. The students are given a school-curated feedback tool to utilize as they complete their clerkships to help compare specialty experiences across their longitudinal curriculum. This takes into consideration items such as patient population, lifestyle, and practice setting. They are encouraged to complete the Medical Specialties Preference Inventory self-assessment from the AAMC’s Careers in Medicine and debrief their results with the career advising team, and eventually, a career specific advisor. They are offered panel sessions with current residents to learn residents’ perspectives on clerkship success. Students also are encouraged to continue to attend the career opportunities as well as attend interest group meetings and events. CV and networking workshops are also provided. Students are offered advice concerning the timing of taking USMLE step exams and how the exam timing affects their ERAS application.
At the end of Phase 2 and beginning of academic year (AY) three, group specialty-specific advising sessions are arranged through the student interest groups, and a panel of advisors helps students navigate planning for the match, discussing topics such as elective choices, how to be competitive for a given specialty, and advice on research and away rotations. To accommodate student needs as they navigate differing clinical schedules, these sessions are offered in the evenings, and sessions are recorded. Students are required to meet with the director of career and professional development to discuss elective choices.
During Phase 3 of the curriculum (AYs three and four), career advising focuses on further support for the career planning process. The students receive a guidebook for residency placement and an advising checklist, and students are required to sign as well as obtain a signature from their advisor. Workshops are held to orient students to the VSLO and ERAS platforms and to prepare them to ask for letters of recommendation. A webinar is conducted to prepare the students for requesting letters for their residency application. The career advising team offers one-on-one meetings to assist in the planning of electives. In the spring of their third year, workshops begin on personal statement writing and how to navigate ERAS.
As they transition to year four, support for interview preparation is provided through in-person, mock interviews as well as through use of the Big Interview Medical platform, which allows students to practice interviews in a virtual setting and obtain feedback on their responses from trusted mentors as well as from an artificial intelligence feature of the software. A three-session media training series for interview preparation also is provided, and attendance is mandatory. All students meet with the director of career and professional development individually to discuss their approaches to the ERAS application and to ERAS supplemental applications. They also meet with their graduate medical education (GME) advisor prior to signaling programs for interviewing. Each student will meet with their GME advisor and/or the director of career and professional development prior to submitting their rank order list.
The career advising team actively monitors progression through the match process, including applications, receipt of letters of recommendation, interview offers, and if needed the Supplemental Offer Assistance Program (SOAP).
In addition to in-person meetings, the students are offered a digital library of resources including career advising “binders” for every subspecialty with detailed information about the work, compensation, and competitiveness of the specialty as well as a fact sheet with pertinent details on match timelines, suggested electives and cost. Students also are given access to the Texas Seeking Transparency in Application to Residency (STAR) database during year three and encouraged to use the American Medical Association’s Fellowship and Residency Electronic Interactive Database Access (FRIEDA) and Residency Explorer tool. Students who do not participate in mandatory career development events are required to meet with the Office of Career and Professional Development and complete a remediation plan.
Overview of the career curriculum across all three phases and all four years
The career advising program is overseen by the director of career and professional development with assistance from the assistant director of student affairs. The director of career and professional development reports to the assistant dean for student affairs.
When working with students, referrals may be recommended to a specialty-specific advisor. A list of specialty-specific advisors is available for the students. The director of career and professional development meets with the senior associate dean for faculty affairs and development every month to identify specialty-specific advisors. Students are encouraged to explore various specialties through the Student Interest Groups that host panels with faculty mentors and department chairs. The Career and Professional Development area of the Office for Student Affairs also hosts regular career sessions to explore various specialties, and students may connect with physicians in their specialty of interest at any time. The students may meet for individual meetings with the director of career and professional development beginning in the spring semester of Phase 1.
When a student identifies a specific specialty of interest, the chair of the respective department is notified, and the student is assigned a specialty-specific advisor. The advisors are identified by the department chair and are advised of appropriate policies and procedures by the chair and the senior associate dean for faculty affairs and development. The students are encouraged to make this connection by the end of Phase 2. Specialty advisors are updated on GME issues during faculty and department meetings by the director of career and professional development.
For the residency application process, students also are assigned an “uber-advisor” who has served as a program director or as a designated institutional official to assist with the residency application process. These advisors are up to date on specialty-related trends and can help the student identify a specialty mentorship team. Students are required to meet with one or more of these advisors as they enter Phase 3 of the curriculum. The assistant director of student affairs and senior associate dean for faculty affairs and development also maintain a list of the entire faculty by subspecialty to facilitate student connections as needed. Specialty-specific advisors receive regular updates concerning the ERAS process and participate in yearly education events.
The career staff members are oriented to the policies and practices of the medical student career advising system through a set of career-advising resources for career advisors and other individuals from whom the students may seek career advising (e.g., clerkship and elective directors; faculty). These resources, available in Canvas, provide an in-depth understanding of residency and career placement, including, but not limited to, residency placement outcomes and specialty-specific application requirements. New advisors are oriented to these materials, and faculty are regularly emailed information with reminders about these resources and how to access them.
The career staff members provide specialty-specific faculty advisors with individual training (one-on-one meetings) in the specific steps as well as best practices of career advising as needed.
The students have access to a myriad of resources to support their career investigations. These are housed or accessed via the student career advising page in Canvas and are advertised to students upon matriculation.