surgery residency Is being a varsity athlete in college. Correlates better than grades, class rank, school, interview, research, psychomotor skills etc.

Worked with several prior Olympic athletes who went on to orthopedics

A meta-analysis of 21 articles relating to preresidency predictors of success in neurosurgical training found that while standardized test scores correlated poorly with faculty performance evaluations, athlete status had a much higher correlation with overall faculty evaluation [20]. Spitzer and colleagues found that residents who were varsity athletes in college were significantly more likely to be appointed chief resident compared to their non-athlete co-residents [21]. Another study examined the effect of athletic involvement on medical student attitudes and burnout. ...