Customer Reviews

Iserson's Getting into a Residency: A Guide for Medical Students, Sixth Edition

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Having just gone through the residency application/match process, I'd like to offer some of my thoughts on the keys to matching successfully with the residency program of your choice. At my medical school, we have a committee that is responsible for providing our students with the guidance needed to match successfully. This year, I had the opportunity to participate on the committee. The other members include several residency program directors, deans, and clerkship directors.

We all agreed that there are no books that can take the place of a good advisor. The right advisor can make all the difference in the world. However, few students would feel comfortable relying solely on an advisor and therefore, most students buy one or more books to help them. Iserson's Getting into a Residency is one such book our committee recommends. This is a book that is now in its sixth edition and has a lot of information essential to the residency application process. In our opinion, every student should buy this book on Day # 1 of medical school because it offers useful advice for years 1,2,3, and 4.

There are several other books that also deserve mention. One is First Aid for the Match by Vikas Bhushan, which is one of the books in the popular First Aid Series. Our committee did not find it as useful but its strengths are the CV and personal statement examples it provides. Another book that we recommend is The Residency Match: 101 Biggest Mistakes And How To Avoid Them by Samir Desai. This book is unlike the other two in that its focus is on the mistakes students make, which are not addressed in the other sources. This book was not available when I applied but had it been, it would have been very useful to me. I can recall making some of these mistakes and I can tell you that it's easy to fall into these traps.

I hope that I have been helpful. Good luck to all of you in your efforts to match with your desired residency program.

Being a second year, this book is a God-send. I should have gotten it last year. Now I really feel that I have insight into the things that I need to be a really competitive candidate. Whenever I asked my preceptors and mentors what I should do, I would receive really vague answers and was often told to not worry about doing research and all of the other things that everyone else was doing. I also feel that after reading the book, I have a much better understanding of the fellowships and residencies, as well as how to schedule my rotations for my third and fourth years.

Very comprehensive. Even has instructions on how you should pack when going for interviews. Compared to the high cost of a medical education, the money you pay for this great resource is a drop in the bucket with tremendous benefit. Really.

Being an IMG, I had to learn the completely different approach of getting into residency than that is in my country. Though not one book is ever going to tell you all the tiny details of that process, I have to admit that this book was my bible during the whole interview season. It's very good in revealing the mechanics, timelines, expectations and requirements as well as things like how to look for the interviews, what to tell and ask and what not to. It's better to buy and read early, since it helps to understand how to build solid resume which in turn takes some time to do. I bought it in August - right before interview season, and it still helped me a lot. I highly recommend it for everybody, especially for medical students, who are thinking about specialty choice - it gives statistics and insights into different specialties from different perspectives.

This book has it all. I also have the 5th edition and it is interesting to compare which specialties the author believes have become more competitive (I do think he's right). This books contains info on each specialty, including contact information for the relevant organizations associated with the specialty. Rather than telling her all this myself, I got this book for my little sister during her first year (I am a third year med student).

Let's see, what else can I tell you about this book? There is a section on how to answer difficult interview questions, what to do when illegal questions are asked (i.e. sexual orientation, child bearing), how to write your personal statement, how to pack your interview clothes. Good stuff. There is also information that would be more relevant to a med student just starting.

I have bought this book after seeing very good reviews on this book. This book has lot of information. I can say too much information. Much of the information can be found on USMLE, ECFMG, FREIDA and other websites. The author has made the book bulky by including the material you can access on the web. The author must have described it in brief and provided links for the relevant websites. There is indeed very important information right from selecting a field to interview for residency. But it is interspersed with lot of junk, making it difficult to find it out. On the whole it is a good book, but not a great one as described by some of the reviewers. It requires a lot of editing. I feel it is a lot of money for free information. I think the authors and publishers will keep this in mind in their future editions.

Very useful for preparing for interviews, especially if you're trying for a competitive field. I highly recommend at least borrowing a copy and reading the interview section before your first interviews. But Iserson's does tend to be a little overzealous- for example he thinks everybody should be shadowing a doctor in their intended field starting in first year of medical school- and some of his advice is unneccesary or just plain wrong. For example, he says women should not bring a purse to interviews and should wear a skirt suit not a pant suit, which, having completed multiple interviews, I can say is total B.S. I have been interviewing for residencies in a relatively uncompetitive field and most of my interviews have been much more laid-back than he implies. I've only been asked tough interview questions like the ones he lists once or twice. Nonetheless, this book is well worth getting if only to avoid making interview bloopers (which I have seen happen with fellow candidates!). Just don't freak out if you haven't done everything he thinks is necessary.

Its analysis on practical issues on the way to a residency program is extremely helpful. Of course, it cannot substitute our own search over the internet for resources, but it explains a great deal of obscure points. The whole process of getting into the residency is analyzed to a very high level. Every detail from the paper to use on communication with a hospital, the letter case you are going to use in a WORD document, to the way your tie has to be tied in the interview date. Everything is explained and over analyzed. For IMGs like me it helps even more because it gives you a real taste of what you are going to encounter entering to the US way of thinking and acting. Only bad point is that it is old and some info is out of date. Be careful and double check with the internet sites that it mentions for updated data. Highly reccomended if you do not know it all...

I found that only about 25% of the material is useful. Rest is trash- The material you can find for free on the internet. Cost is too much for the material. My sincere advise, do not waste money purchasing it. You can borrow it from a public library, go through it and make notes of information that you may find useful. That is what I did.

I feel that this book can not be much of use to international medical graduates. Most of the information is for US medical students. Most of the information can be found on the web free of cost. Only portion of the book that I liked was the interview part. I was disappointed.

This book is not worth the paper it is printed on. If you are an IMG, this book is definitely not for you. The author is obviously bias against all IMGs and especially USIMGs. If you are an IMGs, you will get the notion that this man has little regard for IMGs as physicians. At times, he seems racist even. The worst thing about this book is how out-of-date the information is, especially in regard to IMGs. There are thousands of successful IMGs in this country yet he is very discouraging. Guess what, Iserson? if it wasn't for USIMGs and IMGs there'd be severe doctor shortages in this country. Medical schools like Ross, SGU, AUC have excellent track records of graduating caring, professional, higly capable physicians for more than 25 years now. Yet this man is still ignorant and disrespect all IMGs. Don't buy this book!!!!!