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Tip of the week: ERAS refresher

Residency Program Connection, September 1, 2009

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The madness of the recruitment season begins today with the opening of the ERAS post office. You will become intimately familiar with the ins and outs of ERAS during the next few months. The following is an overview of the program.

ERAS has four components:

• MyERAS Web site: Applicants use this Web site tool to collect, submit, and track his or her documentation and then select training programs to apply to.
• The Dean’s Office Workstation (DWS): The medical school deans’ offices use this tool to collect and scan documentation to forward to the selected training programs’ ERAS Post Offices.
• The Program Directors Workstation (PDWS): Program directors and coordinators use this tool to manage application materials and the application process.
• The ERAS Post Office: The central bank of computers that transmits the selected application materials to the designated training programs.

Applicants wishing to use ERAS must create an account on the MyERAS Web site. In doing so, they must choose a designated dean’s office through which all their supporting documentation will move. Fourth-year medical students or graduates of U.S. medical schools, both allopathic and osteopathic, will contact the dean’s office of their school; foreign medical school graduates will contact the ECFMG, and Canadian medical school graduates will contact the Canadian Residency Matching Service.

Once applicants designate a dean’s office and open an account, they will submit their application, request and attach supporting documentation, and select training programs to send their applications and documentation to. The applicant can submit documentation at any time. The following documentation is downloaded through the DWS to the ERAS Post Office of the selected training program:

• The Common Application Form (CAF), which is the ERAS application form
• Personal statement
• Transcripts of medical school grades
• USMLE and/or COMLEX scores (optional)
• Medical student performance evaluation (MSPE)
• Letters of recommendation (LoR)
• ECFMG status report, if applicable
• Photo, if available

This week’s tip is from The Complete Residency Program Management Guide, by Ruth H. Nawotniak, MS, C-TAGME, published by HCPro, Inc., Marblehead, MA.

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