Blog Viewer

So, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, right?  Well, just this one time I am going to break one of the cardinal rules of life, and spill the beans about my experience at Midyear 2012 in Las Vegas.  At least, most of the beans anyways!  If you are a student who thinks you might like to attend Midyear in the future, or a student who also attended this year’s Midyear and wants to see how your experience compared to mine, check out the rest of this post for more information about my experiences at my first Midyear Clinical Meeting.

As much preparation as I did before attending Midyear, including asking former students who had attended for advice and tips, I still was not prepared for just how many people there were going to be at Midyear.  When they say that Midyear is the largest gathering of pharmacists in the world, they are not kidding!  One thing you should always keep in mind is that the second you step out of the car at the airport, to the second that you get in your car at the airport after returning home, you should consider yourself on your best behavior.  For example, on my plane ride to Las Vegas, I was seated one row in front of someone else attending Midyear and I didn’t even know it until I landed in Vegas.  Also, you are going to see a very large amount of people walking around whatever airport you’re in with large carrying tubes – always assume those people are attending Midyear and are carrying their poster in that tube.

I am going to give you just a little bit of information on what sessions/events I participated in at Midyear before I get to the good stuff, a.k.a. the residency showcase experience.  On Saturday, I participated in “PharmPrep Live!” which was an all day board review, which I found very helpful.  I also participated in PPS, and therefore, I had interviews scheduled for all day Sunday, Monday morning, and Wednesday morning.  Many people told me that as a P4 student interested in PGY-1 residencies that I shouldn’t bother with PPS, however, I decided to do so anyways.  I wanted to gain some experience and confidence answering interview questions from residency directors, and I also took the opportunity to interview with some pharmacist job positions around the country.  I learned some valuable information about some programs that I hadn’t been considering before PPS, and I viewed it as a good experience and a good networking opportunity.  It is up to you individually to decide if PPS is for you, but I would recommend at least looking into it before you dismiss it just because you are interested in PGY-1 residencies.  I did not end up attending any of the student educational sessions because I focused my efforts on the residency showcase and PPS, but I had classmates who did attend many of the sessions and found them helpful.  Some of the sessions/activities that they participated in included an informational session about PhORCAS, a CV review, and mock interviews.

Ah the residency showcase.  I will say that the residency showcase was the most nerve-wracking part of Midyear for me, but it was the most valuable.  I am looking at residency programs in a large geographical area, so I was able to talk to all of the programs that I was interested in at Midyear.  At the conclusion of the showcase I had eliminated several programs that I had thought I was definitely applying to, and I had found a few extra programs that interested me that I had not previously been considering.  Again, as prepared as I was for the residency showcase based on information from former students, nothing could have prepared me for how crowded the showcase is.  It can get extremely hot in the showcase hall, so don’t be afraid to step out of the hall for a second to catch your breath and cool off.  Some other tips to get the most out of the showcase are to plan out what programs you are going to talk to at each session, have questions prepared in advance for those programs, and be patient.  It may take you a few minutes of waiting at a booth to be able to talk to a resident or the residency director, but it is worth the wait to get your questions answered.

This is a bit of a longer post than usual, but I wanted to make sure that I shared some important information from my experiences at Midyear.  If you have any questions about Midyear that I didn’t answer in my post, please feel free to contact me via comment, email, etc, and I will try my best to help you.  Keep an eye out for a post coming soon about my experiences with submitting PGY-1 residency applications via PhORCAS!