Jump to content
Premed 101 Forums

Competitive Programs This Year?


Candiens12

Recommended Posts

  • Replies 67
  • Created
  • Last Reply

From the *grapevine* what I have heard is competitive this year:

 

Anesthesia, Emerg (ridiculously competitive this year), OBGYN, and ?Peds?. On the IM tour, Internal Med seems more competitive then usual with alot of people not getting interviews at places they had strong electives and letters at (including their HOME school)...

 

Ones I *heard* that are not too bad this year: Radiology, Vascular Sx.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've also heard radiology was low on total number of applicants. Anesthesia has hit records yet again this year at my home school. 

 

I'm currently in 3rd year (clerkship) and I'm starting to worry about where are these jobs are going to be for all of these 3000 new residents/year in the future? Seems like the market is becoming incredibly flooded and it's forcing people into either Family Med or to move rural. 

 

Thoughts?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've also heard radiology was low on total number of applicants. Anesthesia has hit records yet again this year at my home school. 

 

I'm currently in 3rd year (clerkship) and I'm starting to worry about where are these jobs are going to be for all of these 3000 new residents/year in the future? Seems like the market is becoming incredibly flooded and it's forcing people into either Family Med or to move rural. 

 

Thoughts?

 

rads is definitely low - cut a 1/3 off of the number of applicants from last year. Not sure why, probably multi focal (tight job market, not a lifestyle specialty anymore, pay cuts...)

 

Always hard to predict this sort of stuff - but we cannot leave the admission numbers indefinitely at this level without some kind of an effect.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

IM has been increasingly competitive in the last several years. I'm not exactly sure why since the job market for some subspecialists is dicey, but it's a fairly flexible base speciality with lots acuity in the community setting. I guess that's attractive hah! 

 

I do think that the quality of IM applicants is getting really strong. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

IM has been increasingly competitive in the last several years. I'm not exactly sure why since the job market for some subspecialists is dicey, but it's a fairly flexible base speciality with lots acuity in the community setting. I guess that's attractive hah! 

 

I do think that the quality of IM applicants is getting really strong. 

 

the flexibility I do think is a big part of it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've been ripping through stats for the last couple hours (what else do you do on a Friday night in between interviews and match day?) on the CaRMS website and I'm glad I'm not going for emerge or anesthesia. Been on this board for years and heard people worry about various specialties being "competitive" from time to time but after going through the CaRMS process and then looking at the numbers I think most of it is unfounded (with the exception of the obvious). The problem with CaRMS tour is that programs interview a large number of candidates and people don't realize that it is the same group of candidates that is getting interviewed at each school. Specific family medicine and internal programs may be competitive but the specialties themselves are not. Some have quite a bit of fluctuation like gen surge and ortho, while others have been consistently under subscribed like path and heme (basically all the lab medicines). I would say the specialties that are factually and consistently "competitive", where by "competitive" I mean that nationally there is greater than 1.5 candidates for every 1 position offered are: Derm, anesthesia, optho, and emerge. What I find most concerning is the number of people who wanted those specialties who ended up unmatched or with their second choice.

http://www.carms.ca/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Table_32_First_Choice_Discipline_of_Unmatched_CMGs_by_Discipline_English.pdf

http://www.carms.ca/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Table_30_CMGs_First_Choice_Discipline_Who_Matched_to_an_Alternate_Choice_Discipline_English.pdf 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Why is anesthesia so competitive every year and doesn't face the fluctuations like rads is facing now? They're both hospital based specialties and subjected to the same job limitations

 

I wouldn't necessarily agree with the question - both Anesthesiology and Radiology are consistently on the upper end of moderately-competitive spectrum and the degree of competitiveness in both fields has some year-to-year variations. The swings in competitiveness for Radiology have been somewhat more pronounced in recent years, but not by a whole lot and not out of keeping with similar fields' competitiveness. Year-to-year variation is expected, with no other reason than that people's preferences are not consistent each year so you can get odd spikes in competitiveness.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've been ripping through stats for the last couple hours (what else do you do on a Friday night in between interviews and match day?) on the CaRMS website and I'm glad I'm not going for emerge or anesthesia. Been on this board for years and heard people worry about various specialties being "competitive" from time to time but after going through the CaRMS process and then looking at the numbers I think most of it is unfounded (with the exception of the obvious). The problem with CaRMS tour is that programs interview a large number of candidates and people don't realize that it is the same group of candidates that is getting interviewed at each school. Specific family medicine and internal programs may be competitive but the specialties themselves are not. Some have quite a bit of fluctuation like gen surge and ortho, while others have been consistently under subscribed like path and heme (basically all the lab medicines). I would say the specialties that are factually and consistently "competitive", where by "competitive" I mean that nationally there is greater than 1.5 candidates for every 1 position offered are: Derm, anesthesia, optho, and emerge. What I find most concerning is the number of people who wanted those specialties who ended up unmatched or with their second choice.

 

http://www.carms.ca/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Table_32_First_Choice_Discipline_of_Unmatched_CMGs_by_Discipline_English.pdf

http://www.carms.ca/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Table_30_CMGs_First_Choice_Discipline_Who_Matched_to_an_Alternate_Choice_Discipline_English.pdf 

 

If you're looking for the most competitive fields from a pure numbers perspective, Plastics, Derm, and Emerg have been pretty consistently at or near the top, with ENT and Ophtho typically rounding out the top 5. Anesthesiology's been sniffing around the top tier, along with OBGYN, but hasn't quite broken into it consistently (though we'll see how this year plays out, based on the rumors). The rate of successful back-ups for candidates going for those fields is pretty interesting too - it's rough going for something like Ophtho because the chances of backing up if you don't match to Ophtho itself a pretty low...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Rad Onc is about a 1:1 applicant/seat ratio, which is about average year over year. Considering a few applicants are certainly backing up, essentially if you show genuine interest and are somewhat socially adjusted, you will match somewhere.

 

Not surprised about radiology - significant fee cuts (which sound more radical than they actually are - radiologists are still in the top 10% of physician billings, in large part due to longstanding increases in efficiency that allow them to read more studies in less time) in combination with a grueling residency, tight job prospects, and a pretty busy staff lifestyle...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

What's going to happen another 5-10 years from now. It seems like it's getting more competitive in so many fields. Even psych seemed to have a ton of candidates this year.

 

For the most part, specialty competitiveness is a zero-sum game, in that for some specialties to get more competitive, others have to get less competitive. This year the Ontario government cut 25 CMG spots, so that does increase overall competitiveness slightly, but it's going to be a small factor for most fields and (hopefully) not part of a long-term trend. So long as the applicant-to-spot ratio stays roughly constant, so should overall competitiveness.

 

It's also hard to judge competitiveness based on rumors or perceptions. We won't really know what the field looked like this year until after the match day has passed and we see some hard stats.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

What's going to happen another 5-10 years from now. It seems like it's getting more competitive in so many fields. Even psych seemed to have a ton of candidates this year.

 

 

This is a scary reality (especially for me as I'll be finishing up PGY-5 in 6 years time). There is no way there's enough room for all of these graduating residents. You're going to have to be highly mobile

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This is a scary reality (especially for me as I'll be finishing up PGY-5 in 6 years time). There is no way there's enough room for all of these graduating residents. You're going to have to be highly mobile

 

it is a problem we are going to have to address - if the number of residents exceeds the number of jobs then no matter what you do there will be issues - I mean mobility will help of course but there will be a shift (like there is already) towards fields that are. Still doesn't deal with the underlying problem ha :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.


×
×
  • Create New...