Copy and Paste? Not a bad idea but fix the formatting

I'm posting again today because I've identified an interesting problem. Some of the institution names are very long and complicated.  Here's an example: University of North Carolina Hospitals and Clinics/UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy.  I talked to a bunch of people from this institution shortly after their name changed and they often forgot the "Eshelman School of Pharmacy" partly because it was new.  This was an amusing joke to the offenders, but it is not taken the same way when someone from the outside messes things up.

The point I'm trying to make is that the people at these institutions will know the name of their facility intimately and will notice it immediately if you refer to it as a "Medical Center" when it is a "Hospital" or when you leave out "at Brooklyn," "at Stanford" or "& Trauma Center" at the end of the institution's name.  Misspellings will also leave a negative impression.  When in doubt, use the name from the ASHP residency database as that is the name they will use in PhORCAS and the Match.  Include the whole lengthy drawn out name, even though it doesn't fit very well on the page.  Leaving something out could offend the wrong person and you never know...

This advice applies to your letters of intent and attached letters used by your references.

PhORCAS glitches

The PhORCAS reference portal is probably getting some heavy use this week and next but for the early bird reference writers, there are a few glitches you may want to be aware of.  None of this should affect your application but for the paranoid types, this may add a little bit of stress for your references.  I checked boxes and copied in free comments from Word (to lower the risk of typos, see last blog post comment) and then I got to the last page and saw a nice little button called "preview."  Yesterday, clicking on the preview button did nothing.  Today, clicking on that button resulted in the creation of a PDF which contained almost nothing on it but the student's name and some numbers.  I called PhORCAS to see if something went horribly wrong and they told me they were having trouble with the preview function which they were expecting to have fixed by the end of the week. This was good news to me but doesn't give me much peace of mind.  I'm happy that I have everything saved in Word but I'm hoping that I don't have to go back in and put information in there again. The PhORCAS representative on the phone said that everything should be submitted correctly. To those I'm writing for, I'm still 100% committed to make sure everything gets submitted befor the deadline.

The take-home-point is that if one of your references contacts you expressing frustration about the PhORCAS reference portal, you might want to tell them about this known glitch.  I'm hoping that the student's ability to preview their application is not affected, but it might be.  If you can share any wisdom regarding your own PhORCAS experiences, please comment on this post.  It will help us help your classmates!

Tips for Successful Residency Applications in PhORCAS

At the ASHP Midyear Clinical Meeting, I had an opportunity to attend a session about the new PhORCAS application system.  This session was co-sponsored by ASHP Accreditation Services and PhORCAS.

A few interesting facts:
-100% of ASHP-accredited residencies are using PhORCAS for the 2012-2013 cycle
-As of November 18th, there are >4000 applicants in PhORCAS.  This is expected to grow to over 6000 applicants.
-As of November 18th, there 3285 registered residency positions in the Match.

Here are some practical tips for you to consider as you submit your application materials:
1. Label documentation carefully! My letter of intent for Intermountain Medical Center should be easily distinguishable from Utah Valley Medical Center. Examples: SebranekLOI_IntermountainMedCtr versus Sebranek LOI_UtahValley.  Be sure you are uploading the correct documents to each program.

2. The acceptable file formats in PhORCAS are .doc, .pdf, and .txt.  NOTE: .docx (newer version of Word) documents WILL NOT be accepted and you cannot upload them to PhORCAS.  You can convert a .docx file to .doc in Word by "Save As" and selecting the correct file name.

3. A candidate CAN NOT e-submit his/her application until the separate registration and fee for the National Matching Service (NMS) has been submitted.  You can register for NMS through PhORCAS.

4. Once e-submission to a particular program has occurred, the only updates the candidate can make are to his/her contact information. 

5. Apply early!  For instance, if a program has a deadline of January 5th, do not wait until January 3rd to start application paperwork.  There are more than 1500 programs in PhORCAS so you don't want to run the risk of not completing an application because you ran out of time or there were web site difficulties because of the high traffic.

This is the first year of PhORCAS so there will be inevitable bugs in the system to work out.  Good luck submitting your applications!