If you're worried about your MSPE, it means you're nearing the end of your medical school education. Congratulations. You've put in a lot of hard work to get to this point: four years of undergraduate work plus four more years of med school.
You're not done yet, though. As you've already recognized, the Medical School Performance Evaluation (MSPE) can play an enormous role in the success of your residency applications. A 2018 NRMP Director Survey found, for instance, that 81 percent of medical schools consider MSPEs in selecting interview candidates. Meanwhile, residency programs rated their importance as 4.0 out of 5.
The MSPE is even more critical to your residency applications if you're a student at a Caribbean medical school. While the match rate for US medical students is 94.1 percent, the rate for US graduates of international medical schools is just 50 percent. The match rate is even lower for international students at non-US medical schools, at 40.9 percent.
In short, you can't afford for anything to go wrong with your MSPE. That means you can't risk a mistake in your letter, and you certainly can't risk the possibility that a letter writer might try to tank your letter deliberately.
Luckily Joseph D. Lento and his Education Law Team have your back. If you're having trouble with your MSPE or any other aspect of your residency applications, they're here to help. They know the medical school and residency systems; they know what an MSPE should look like, and they know who to talk to if there's a problem and what to say. Most importantly, though, they're on your side. Don't let a bad MSPE hurt your chances of a successful medical career. Find out what Joseph D. Lento and his team can do for you.
What Is an MSPE, and How Is It Used?
Your residency application will include several parts. As you might imagine, all of them play a large role in helping programs decide which applicants to invite.
- A C.V. or application
- A personal statement
- Letters of recommendation
- Medical school transcripts
- Licensing exam transcripts
- Medical School Performance Evaluation
You complete the first three items on this list yourself. Your medical school is responsible for the others. Sometimes a school will automatically provide you with copies of these materials, but more often, they simply upload them to the Electronic Residency Application Service (ERAS). If that's the case, you'll want to take the time to actually request copies so you can see just what these materials say about you.
At one time, the MSPE was referred to as the Dean's Letter." However, it should not be confused with your other letters of recommendation. As part of your package, you'll need at least three of these letters.
An MSPE, in contrast, works as a sort of narrative summary of your time in medical school. You might think of it as the "story" of your student experience. Ultimately, it should be thorough, containing information about virtually every aspect of your med school career, including coursework and clinical rotations.
While your medical school's dean's office is ultimately responsible for this document, usually, this office assigns a faculty member or another administrator to complete it. Typically, this individual will invite you to meet with them to discuss what they're planning to say. They'll also likely ask you some questions to help them fill out the details. They may ask you to describe your background or to talk about your career goals. Keep in mind, though, that Caribbean schools can be overcrowded. This means some writers may not feel they have the time to meet with each and every student individually. It's important, though, that you have some input on what they say and that the MSPE they write is tailored to you as an individual. As a result, if you've not been specifically asked to meet with your writer, you should take the initiative and request a meeting.
Residency evaluations are usually due on the last day of September or the first day of October. You want to make sure you have plenty of time to get the MSPE done before this date, including an initial meeting with the writer, as well as time to look over what they've written and make any necessary revision suggestions.
You'll probably also be coordinating with an official in the Caribbean while you're working on clinical rotations in the US or Canada, and you'll need to facilitate communication between your writer at your school and your clinical supervisors wherever you're performing your rotations. All of this takes time and energy. It's a good idea to request that first meeting no later than July.
Finally, you should know that an MSPE cannot be revised once it has been submitted to ERAS. This means you want to be absolutely confident that this document has no mistakes, that it is a true and faithful record of your work, and that it doesn't leave out any of your more important accomplishments. To be sure, you need to see a copy of the MSPE, and, again, you'll want to see it with enough time before the deadline to make necessary changes.
What Does an MSPE Look Like?
If it's up to you to decide whether or not your MSPE is doing what it should, it can be helpful to know exactly what should be included in it.
Again, it is meant to be a complete summary, and it covers the first three years of your medical school career. In other words, it should be quite detailed.
There is no specific format for the MSPE. However, the Association for American Medical Colleges (AAMC) recommends an MSPE include six separate sections.
- Identifying Information: Your name, your school's name and location, and any other important factual information about you
- Noteworthy Characteristics: Three qualities your evaluator thinks best represent you and a discussion of what each one says about you
- Academic History: Specific information about your grades and test scores, including
- The date of your initial matriculation to medical school
- Your expected date of graduation
- Explanations for any gaps in your education history
- Information on any courses you had to repeat
- Information about any sanctions you might have received
- Academic Progress: A statement about your pre-clinical work, rotations, and any clerkships you might have completed, including evaluations and grades
- Summary: A final statement that summarizes your work as a medical student and your suitability to serve in a residency program
- Medical School Information: Background information on your program, including its various emphases, its mission, and any distinguishing characteristics that might help a residency program make its decision
Again, it is essential that you check each of these sections carefully. You want to ensure the document is accurate but also that it doesn't leave out any important information about you and that it puts you in the best possible light.
Where Can Things Go Wrong With an MSPE?
What exactly are you checking for when you review your MSPE? In fact, there are a number of things that can go wrong, and you want to make sure you've considered all of them.
- Factual Inaccuracies: These are typically the easiest errors to correct since doing so simply involves providing evidence of the facts. By the same token, though, these can be the most important to correct. If, for instance, your grades are reported incorrectly, that can have an enormous impact on whether or not a residency program decides to invite you.
- Low Grades: Obviously, you want to be an appealing candidate, and grades are among the most important factors a residency program considers. There are a couple of options for dealing with low grades on your MSPE. First, you can try negotiating directly with instructors for higher scores. You can sometimes get them to reconsider your work from a term. When it's not being compared to your colleagues' work, your work may seem better than it did at the time. Alternatively, you can ask your MSPE writer to include an explanation, contextualizing your low grade, and explaining why it isn't necessarily the negative reflection on you that it seems to be.
- Disciplinary Problems: Professionalism is a critical component of all residency programs, and any disciplinary problems during med school will tend to suggest that you struggle in this area. Any time you are accused of violating school policy, you should challenge that accusation immediately. If the black mark already exists on your MSPE, you should work to appeal the original finding.
- Tone and Style Problems: Most residency applicants have good grades and positive recommendations. If you want to be considered—especially coming from a Caribbean program—you want your MSPE to go beyond facts and statistics and say something about who you are as an individual and what you personally bring to the medical profession. Keep in mind that MSPEs are limited to just seven pages. That means any comments about you must be succinct. However, suggest to your evaluator that they consider you from a holistic point of view. What do your hobbies and outside interests, for instance, say about your qualifications to work in the medical field?
An MSPE is meant to be an objective document, an honest summing up of who you are as a medical student and what you have accomplished. Gushing or overly glowing evaluations don't usually do you any favors. How information is conveyed within the document, though, can have an enormous impact on whether a residency program sees you as a person or just a number. If your evaluator gives the impression they know and trust you, it can go a long way towards convincing a program that they can trust you too.
A Note About Clerkship Evaluations
Your MSPE should also include clerkship and clinical rotation evaluations. If you're a student from the Caribbean, these warrant special attention.
Caribbean medical schools don't generally have their own local teaching hospitals. As a result, students are usually sent to clerkships and rotations at US hospitals. For example, Trinity School of Medicine works with facilities in Warner Robins, Georgia. Ross University medical students can be sent to one of twenty-nine different locations in the US. This can create problems when it comes time to work through the MSPE. This document will be written by someone at your medical school, but they will need to coordinate evaluations with supervisors in the States. Obviously, this situation creates lots of room for error.
There is another important issue when it comes to these evaluations, however. It is an unfortunate fact that some US physicians and administrators view Caribbean students as less prepared and less capable than their US counterparts. As a result, they sometimes treat these students differently, and this may extend to clinical and clerkship evaluations. If you feel you are being treated unfairly or that your evaluations don't match up with the hard work you put into your rotations, you must take the time to challenge that treatment. Keep in mind, though, that it's not easy to take on a supervisor. They may have years of training, and that can be intimidating. The healthcare facility may very well back them up: no hospital wants to believe that its doctors make mistakes.
Having Joseph D. Lento and his team of Education Law professionals on your side can help balance the equation, giving you the confidence you need to demand the fair treatment you deserve.
What Can an Attorney Do?
At this point, you might ask, what can an attorney do to help me as a student? We normally think of lawyers as defending criminals or helping businesses iron out complicated contracts. The fact is the right attorney—one with a background in education and particularly medical education—can help you in many ways. Joseph D. Lento and his Education Law Team know how to make sure you are treated fairly, but in a more concrete sense, they know how to help you move through the often-confusing bureaucracy that characterizes most educational institutions.
As a starting point, an attorney can help you review documents. This is an important part of their training. The professionals at the Lento Law Firm are particularly experienced when it comes to looking over medical school documents. They can let you know if there are any factual errors in your MSPE, help you decide if the tone and the style put you in a favorable light, and even offer concrete suggestions for revision.
Of course, you may then have to convince your evaluator to make those changes. Joseph D. Lento and his Team can also work with you in negotiation tactics and help you come up with just the right way to put your suggestions to your writer.
Joseph D. Lento and his Team can also help you to deal with problem areas in your MSPE. They are experienced with drafting and presenting formal appeals if you feel you've been treated unfairly or you need to challenge a misconduct allegation. They can help you appeal grades and evaluations. They can even help you appeal the choice of who is writing your MSPE.
The Lento Law Firm can also suggest a number of informal solutions to MSPE problems, though. Again, they can help you decide who to approach when you have a problem, help you work out what you need to say, even give you practice in actually conducting negotiations.
The time to consult with an attorney from the Lento Law Firm, though, isn't after your school has submitted your MSPE to the ERAS. It's now. It's every time that you feel like a grade is lower than it should be or an evaluation seems a little too negative. It's any time that you are accused of any sort of misconduct or unprofessional behavior. It's before you sit down for that first meeting with your MSPE writer and then throughout the process of putting that document together and revising it. Joseph D. Lento and his Education Law Team can help, but only if you give them the opportunity to help.
Fighting for Your Future
This is the moment you've been waiting for. The matching process can be one of the most exciting aspects of your journey toward your medical career. You can't afford for anything to go wrong, though. Your residency applications, and especially your MSPE, have to be perfect.
Is yours? There's one sure way to know.
Let Joseph D. Lento and his Education Law Team help you put it together. Let them offer advice; give them a chance to review your document; ask them how you can improve weak spots. The Lento Law Firm was built to help students succeed. They believe in you and your dreams, and they're prepared to do whatever they can to help make those a reality.
To find out more about exactly what Joseph D. Lento and his Team can do for you, contact the Lento Law Firm today at 888-555-3686, or use our automated online form.
