What's a good school to attend to become a trauma doctor

You don’t necessarily have to choose a medical school affiliated with a trauma center to pursue a surgical specialty in trauma. The most important criteria for selecting a medical school is how well they will teach you the foundation subjects to prepare you to pass your board examinations and to obtain a residency of your choice. In your case this would be a surgery or surgical specialty such as orthopedics. What I do recommend to students however is to choose your electives strategically. If you want to be a trauma surgeon then do at least one elective in trauma and select a program where you would be interested in for residency. This speaks loudly to residency selection committees.

To be highly competitive in the residency selection process, these are the things you must achieve.

1. High grade point average and evaluations on your third and fourth year electives. Do Not fail or drop any classes.
2. Get involved with your medical school, (school government or tutoring) or a community program to demonstrate diversity.
3. Get a score on Step 1 of 230 or higher.***
4. Practice your interpersonal skills and interviewing skills. You can have the best of grades, but if you don’t present yourself well on the actual interview you could drop in rank. Research each program so you can discuss with the interviewer exactly why you have chosen that particular program. Create a list of intelligent questions to ask during your interview.
5. Research the programs and choose electives strategically.
6. Develop a list of residency programs you are interested in. The first five should be your top five, no matter whether you think you would be eligible or not. The last 5 should be primary care specialties, maybe in remote locations you would like to serve. These are your fall backs. The most important thing is to match on the first round. You don’t want to have to scramble and be sent to a program you know nothing about. And each time one doesn’t match the less competitive one becomes. ++

*** Lower scores on Step 1 than the one mentioned does not eliminate your competitiveness for residency. But, the more competitive the residency (Opthamology), the higher the board score must be.

++ Residency programs are evaluated on how well their trainees perform on specialty board examinations. If the program believes an applicant will not perform well on these boards, then the applicant will be passed over.

The main schools are Johns Hopkins, Sibley, Mass General. This is a very competative field. Good grades, out side interest and recommendations are key.