A Medical Student Guide toPreparing Your Curriculum Vitae

Office of Admissions & Student Affairs

What is a curriculum vitae?

• Summary of your background and accomplishments related to your academic and work experience

• Necessary for applications for scholarships, research experiences, honor societies and residency programs

• Update often with new accomplishments.

What to include?

• Does this particular piece of information help explain who I am and what I’ve accomplished?

• Will this piece of information encourage residency programs, scholarship committees or research mentors to select me for an interview or particular experience?

• If I were reading this for the first time and without knowledge of myself as an applicant, would this information be useful?

Getting Started

Suggested Content• Contact Information

• Education

• Honors and Awards

• Work Experience (Clinical & Teaching Experience)

• Extracurricular and Service Activities

• Research

• Presentations & Publications

• Professional Memberships

• Language Skills, Hobbies & Interests

Contact Information

• Name• Mailing address• Professional email address • Phone numbers

Make sure to use current information where you can be reached.

Education• List all colleges and universities you have attended for your medical

school, graduate, and undergraduate education• Include the name and location of each institution, the degree sought or

earned, the date of (expected) completion, and major and minor field of study.

Begin with M.D. Anticipated May 201X Include any scholarly concentrationsUndergraduate degree(s), title of thesis, if applicablePostgraduate training (residencies and fellowships), academic appointments, and

certification and licensure

Honors and Awards

• Include any awards and scholarships you received during medical school

• Honors in Clerkships, USMLE scores (optional)• Only the most important undergraduate awards and

scholarships

Work Experience – Clinical & Teaching Experience

• List all major or medically related work experiences, including your position title, name of employer, location, and dates of employment.

• Add a brief description of your responsibilities and achievements as well as the competencies you gained.

• Be specific, skill-focused, and relevant

• OPTIONAL: You may want to break this up into two sections for Clinical Experience and Teaching Experience

Clinical Experience

• List clinical experience, exposure and/or preceptorships

• Include name of person you worked with and dates

• Add a brief description of your responsibilities and achievements as well as the competencies you gained

• Can tailor this to fit your specialty choice or career path

Teaching Experience

• Include course name and your role

Supplemental instructorStep 1 Brain preparation, MCAT tutoring Practice of Medicine instruction or other peer-led instructor roles

• Add a brief description of your responsibilities and achievements as well as the competencies you gained

• Can tailor this to fit your specialty choice or career path

Extracurricular and Service Volunteer Activities

• List the most important long-term activities and their dates you participated in during medical school

committee work community service projects student organization involvement

• Include your pre-medical school activities only if extraordinary or applicable to health care

OPTIONAL: You may want to have a separate section for Leadership Experience

Research

• List all your major and medically related research projects

• Add a few sentences or title describing each project and your role on the project

• Include the research mentor’s name and professional title as well as the location and dates where/when you completed your research.

Presentations & Publications

• List any research, professional, or poster presentations from conferences, lectures, symposiums, and specialty association meetings

• Include the title of the presentation, authors, audience, and any other relevant details

• This section may be easily combined with publications to create a single, more attractive section

Publications

• List all published articles in which you are included as an author

• If an article has been accepted for publication but not yet published, use the notation "in press" and omit a publication year

• Use medical bibliographic reference style and be consistent throughout your CV

• http://guides.library.unr.edu/EndnoteWeb

Professional Memberships

• May be combined with national student organizations

OPTIONAL: Language Skills

• Written, verbal, fluency

Hobbies & Interests

• This section often used to keep interviews conversational

Formatting – Goal is to be easy to read!

• Set margins at 1 inch

• Chose the font carefully - 11 or 12 point

• Ensure consistent style, size, and formatting of headings Arial, Helvetica, Times New Roman, Calibri

• Use bold, italics, capitalization, and bullets to organize your CV — but use sparingly

• Length - Two pages will be a good start for most students

Getting Started

Resources

• Careers in Medicine https://students-residents.aamc.org/training-residency-fellowship/article/preparing-your-curriculum-vitae/

• UNSOM Admissions and Student Affairs • http://www.http://medicine.nevada.edu/student-affairs/

career-development/curriculum-vitae