Tips to Make Your CV
Written by Nina Madjer, MD
Typically, the next step after going through medical school is to obtain a post-graduate residency position, especially if the goal is to practice medicine in the United States. This achievement has a very competitive path currently, and preparing yourself to obtain a residency position is important. One important part of the process to prepare for the residency application process is to make your CV, and update it.
Throughout my medical and academic career, I have found that categorizing your curriculum vitae (CV) into sections that are similar to those that are in the ERAS application can help identify two very important things: your application strengths and weaknesses.
By organizing your achievements early, you can identify the gaps in your future application, and hopefully, have enough time before applying to residency to work on those gaps, and seek out opportunities that will boost your application.
There are many ways to construct a CV, but the following system could benefit you if you are applying to the AAMC ERAS residency application, as many of these categories directly reflect the section of the application that each candidate must fill in. My system has seven categories: Education, Certificates & Awards, Memberships, Publications & Presentations, Research Experience, Clinical & Administrative Experience, and Skills and Hobbies.
Once you have filled in this information into the respective categories, it will be easier to see which categories are your strengths and which categories need a little more attention. For example, you may have plenty of clinical volunteer experiences, but haven’t had any publications or presentations so far. This would be the ideal time to start seeking out opportunities to bolster specific areas of your CV.
Having an organized CV can repurpose your focus and give clarity and visibility into the structure of our daily practice. It sheds light on where our energy can be sent.
Attached find a copy of my CV to give you an example of how I organize it.
