How to Apply Internal Medicine Residency Program | Department of Internal Medicine | UC Davis Health

All application materials must be received through ERAS. These are the required and recommended materials:

1. Completed ERAS application
   • Our program has participated in the ERAS signaling program since its inception, and both we and applicants have found it useful. We also find the expanded ERAS abilities to describe experiences and impactful life events very helpful. So, we encourage applicants to use the features to their fullest.
   • We also realize that every applicant’s situation is unique, so we still review every application, regardless of whether we get “signaled” from an applicant..
2. Three required letters of recommendation; with option for up to 1 more
   
   • One letter from the Chair of Medicine at your medical school (or Chair's designate) – i.e. the Chair’s Letter
   • Two letters from faculty who have worked with you. One of these should be an internal medicine faculty who has supervised you clinically.
   • Feel free to upload one additional letter (i.e. 4 total) from clinical faculty (from any field) and/or a scholarly project mentor, but this is not required.
3. Dean's letter (aka Medical Student Performance Evaluation)
4. USMLE scores or COMLEX scores (Step 1 required, and Step 2, if available). To be ranked on our Match list, we require Step 2 scores before the rank list due date in February.
5. Personal statement. This should not be AI generated, as we want to read your own thoughts and words.
6. Selective Service Registration. In addition, male applicants must be able to provide evidence of registration for the Selective Service program (or evidence of exemption), but we do not require that this is submitted with the application. See below for further information.

All applications are screened by our Selection Committee utilizing a holistic review. This is a flexible, individualized way of assessing an applicant’s capabilities by which balanced consideration is given to experiences, attributes, and academic metrics, and when considered in combination, how the applicant might contribute to our program’s mission and as a future practicing physician. This means that we take into account the entirety of students’ performance and background in determining who we offer interviews to. Thus, we do not have a minimum board score requirement (USMLE and/or COMLEX) —we only require that you have passed each step that you have taken. We review all applications that have passing scores, even if you failed on initial attempts. Students’ clinical performance and extracurricular activities (e.g. research, community engagement, volunteer work, leadership positions, life experience before medical school) are very important parts of our review. We value diversity in all its forms – socioeconomic status, race/ethnicity, gender identity, sexual orientation, and living with disability. 

Signaling:  While we preferentially review applications from those who signal our program, we also consider applicants who do not signal us.  But due to a high volume of applications, we are unlikely to extend interview offers to applicants who do not signal our program with either a gold or silver signal.

We generally do not review applications until after the release of the Dean's Letter in the end of September. Due to the time required to do a thorough holistic review, and the fact that we do not usually extend interview offers until all applications are reviewed, our interview invites usually do not come out until the last two weeks of October.  We only send out all invites in the afternoon (not in the morning during rounds) and use the Thalamus program scheduling tool.  We do not extend more invites than interview slots.  Once all our interview slots are filled (approximately one week after the initial invites go out), we notify the remaining applicants if they have been selected to be our waitlist (should some interviewees cancel their interviews), or if we will not offer them an interview. 

For the 2024-2025 interview season, we will follow the AAMC’s recommendations and University of California rules and perform all interviews in a virtual fashion. Interviews will be scheduled between mid-November and the end of January.

We plan to offer a limited number of in-person Second Look days in late January or February for those interested in visiting our campus in-person. An applicant’s decision to attend one of these will have no bearing on their ranking in our program, so they should feel no pressure to attend. To ensure equity in this process, the Second Looks occur after we finalize our rank list and submit it to our Graduate Medical Education (GME) Office. The GME team here ensures that we do not change our list after the Second Looks. We will provide more details on the interview day about our Second Look program.

Our interview day structure has not yet been finalized for this year, but a general overview is the following:

• Greetings from and conversations with program leadership
• Interviews with two faculty members
• Sessions with our chief residents and residents with opportunities to ask questions and hear more about our program
• A “Virtual Happy Hour” meeting with residents.  We do one Happy Hour per week. Most applicants attend this during the week of their interview

The Internal Medicine Residency Program will only sponsor J1 Visas. 

• Requirements for consideration of international medical graduates applying for postgraduate training in internal medicine also include:

  • Completed ERAS Application, including personal statement
  • Completion of prescribed course of study in an approved medical school in the past 5 years
  • Valid ECFMG certificate (passing both medical and English sections)
  • Passage of approved examination(s) (FLEX, USMLE)
  • Legal right to remain and work in the United States
  • 3 letters of recommendation
  • Dean's letter (MSPE)
  • Copy of medical school transcripts
  • Experience in an American hospital, with clinical exposure. (Pure research in a laboratory of an American hospital is not acceptable)
  • For more information on International Medical Graduates and Visas, please visit the Graduate Medical Education Office website.

The VA requires that all male residents, fellows, and paid employees who are required by law to register for the Selective Service must be able to provide evidence of registration or exemption from registration.  All our residents rotate through the Sacramento VA Medical Center as a major teaching site. Thus, we require that applicants have this evidence of registration or exemption if they are going to apply to our program, as they must be able to work at the VA if they match in our program. 

The requirements for Selective Service Registration are found here: Selective Service-Who Must Register. If you have any questions about this, please contact us at imres@ucdavis.edu.
Important: if you determined that you do not meet this requirement, please contact us immediately so we can assist you further.

For medical students who are interested in rotating at UC Davis in their 4^th year to check us out, the UC Davis School of Medicine does offer many elective courses in the Department of Internal Medicine.  These are coordinated through the School of Medicine and not the residency program.  More information can be found here.

Students will need to visit the AAMC's Visiting Student Learning Opportunities™ (VSLO®) and complete an application (there is a fee associated with this). 

Please note that for our Externship (Visiting Acting/Sub Internship) in Medicine (IMD 462), space is very limited. We do require that students have successfully completed all of their 3rd-year clerkships before enrolling for these electives. Please include the following additional documents for consideration: a letter of interest and USMLE/COMLEX scores (you may compile it into a word document and save as one PDF to upload onto the VSLO website).

Although we do not supply housing or stipends, there are many rentals available near the medical center. Arrangements for housing must be done on an individual basis.

Please note that the Office of Student and Resident Diversity does have a special program that offers significant financial assistance to qualified 4^th year medical students who are underrepresented in medicine and/or from economically disadvantaged backgrounds. Find More information on this Diversity in Medicine Visiting Elective Program.

Lastly, please note that doing a visiting student rotation does not guarantee an interview in the residency program.