The MyERAS Application requires a lot of information in order to successfully match programs and applicants. The Experiences Section is often overlooked, however it is one of the most important parts of the application. This section focuses on personal perspective and experiences to give a well-rounded view of the applicant. Below, we will examine how to best utilize this section.
What belongs in the Experiences Section of the MyERAS Application?
First, you separate your experiences (clinical, work, teaching, research, extracurriculars, and volunteer) into three categories: work, research, and volunteer. You should include all of your relevant past to illustrate to residency programs you are ready to train in a residency, along with experiences outside of clinical training. According to ERAS, the experiences portion will allow you to input your additional experience that wasn’t expressed in the rest of your application. Next, we will review each category.
Identifying what is a work, research or volunteer experience in MyERAS
As it can be difficult to break up your experiences into each category, let’s discuss some traits to look for.
- Work – any clinical or teaching positions (paid or unpaid). You may include your clinical rotations but if these are included on your MSPE in detail, consider including a different experience. Current or recent medical students can include core rotations in addition to a few elective rotations or a summary of your time in one area.
- We recommend reaching out to your school for access to your MSPE
- Research – any research programs you participated in. Do not worry if it is relevant to your specialty.
- Volunteer – all unpaid activities and committees you were involved in. You can use this to demonstrate personal traits and hobbies that are important to you.
- For example: debate committee, leadership council
What information is required for each Experience?
Next, you will need to provide the following details:
- Organization
- Position
- Supervisor (if applicable)
- Location
- Average hours/Week
- Brief description of role and responsibilities
- Reason for leaving (if applicable)
- Date of beginning to end
Writing tips for the work, research and volunteer experience section of the MyERAS Application
- Pick experiences carefully. You want to include the experiences that display who you are now. In other words, pick your most relevant and recent experiences. Fill any professional gaps with an experience.
- Be detailed. The most important part of the Experiences Section is explaining your experiences clearly. You should use a paragraph for each experience to go into detail about what you learned and how you learned it. Describe any medical or professional skills such as taking patient history or inserting an IV for the first time. If you have an idea of the language used in your Letters of Recommendation you can use those details.
- Include ALL medical experiences. While your Personal Statements and Letters of Recommendation should be specialty specific, you want to include all of your medically relevant experiences. This is a great way to show your diversity in the medical field.
- PROOFREAD BEFORE YOU SUBMIT! Do not rush your application! You will make costly mistakes! Lastly, make sure each experience contains proper grammar and no spelling errors or typos. Once you “Certify”, your experiences will be locked in and no further changes will be allowed.
In order to ensure the quality of your MyERAS Application, consider signing up for a Residency Experts package! You can reach out to our support team by calling (858)-221-8580 or email us at support@residencyexperts.com.