Competing for competitive residency positions harder than getting into med school?

[ciel999]

Do you think competing for competitive residency positions, like neurosurgery, ophthalmology, plastic surgery, etc. is harder than competing to get into medical school?

[astrogirl]

Nope. The most competitive residencies have something on the order of two or three times as many people competing as there are spots. Comparing that with med school applications, there are more like 6-10 times as many applicants as there are spots.

[BigM]

Nope. The most competitive residencies have something on the order of two or three times as many people competing as there are spots. Comparing that with med school applications, there are more like 6-10 times as many applicants as there are spots.

 

If you're just looking at the number of applicants vs. number of spots then yes, competing to get a seat in medical school is harder. But we are talking about competing at two different levels. While there are many excellent candidates that aren't able to land a seat into medical school, those who do are generally top candidates. When you are competing for the most competitive residencies you are competing against some of the top applicants (some of the ones that excel the highest of those who got into medical school). This isn't an absolute statement by any means, but the point I'm trying to make is the people who go for competitive specialties are usually very ambitious.

 

But all that said, the match statistics are pretty promising, even for competitive programs. If you know what you want to do early on, do research in a related area (or even any area) and preform well on all rotations, and are willing to go anywhere to train in that specialty your changes of getting a spot, even in a competitive specialty are pretty good. Even if one or more of those elements are missing, your changes of matching are still pretty good.

[Med0123]

i think it is less difficult to enter to a competitive residency than to enter medschool if you KNOW early in which specialty you want to spend the rest of your life doing. BUT imo it is far more stressful because we are talking about an almost irrevocable match (it is hard to switch residency once you're into another).

 

While you can apply every year for medschool and be considered at the same level to undergrads, if you matched once in CaRMS you cannot be ever again considered at the same level to 1st iteration applicants of the subsequent years... One option would be to apply in one and only one specialty and if you do not match, do a research year (as in a crap year of PR with PDs of the wanted universities) and try again... but nothing guaranties you a successful match!

[thehumanmacbook]

^even then it's no real guarantee. There are candidates that have done everything that they could for ophthal and not matched at all (didn't backup, all in)- gotta do a research year and try again!

[NLengr]

Neurosurgery isn't really in the ultra competative catagory. At least it wasn't last time I looked.

[futureGP]

i think it is less difficult to enter to a competitive residency than to enter medschool if you KNOW early in which specialty you want to spend the rest of your life doing. BUT imo it is far more stressful because we are talking about an almost irrevocable match (it is hard to switch residency once you're into another).

 

While you can apply every year for medschool and be considered at the same level to undergrads, if you matched once in CaRMS you cannot be ever again considered at the same level to 1st iteration applicants of the subsequent years... One option would be to apply in one and only one specialty and if you do not match, do a research year (as in a crap year of PR with PDs of the wanted universities) and try again... but nothing guaranties you a successful match!

 

what's PR

and PD?

[Robin Hood]

what's PR

and PD?

 

PD=program director.

[justletmein]

The problem is you're not asking the right question....

 

 

Are residencies more competitive than med school applications? NO.

Are residency applications more stressful than med school apps? YES YES YES

 

WHY? Because you can apply to med school as many times as you want. Residency match determines your future CAREER. And you pretty much only get one chance to do it right.

[Med0123]

PR = public relations, aka look good and smart and interested and beautiful every time you're close to the PD

[1234]

In general, residency apps is less competitive than medical school apps. However, rads, ophtho, plastics, derm, etc. are not necessarily more competitive by raw numbers comparison. However, if you look at the applicants, you will see that it is tremendously competitive. People that attempt to gain entrance in that field are no joke. Everyone has an excellent application. That parity makes it stressful.

 

And it is more stressful because it is a MAJOR fork in the road. And it is an EXTREMELY subjective process. People that are competitive for medical school apps can bank on their application itself. A lot of subjective factors, elective performance, their knowledge of you, have a huge impact on whether you get your desired spot. It is also more stressful if you have family/wife/kids/serious other because residency is not short for those that specialize and to have to uproot your family is tough.

[1234]

PR = public relations, aka look good and smart and interested and beautiful every time you're close to the PD

 

Beautiful? I look as ****ty and stinky as I can through doing 7 days straight of call haha.

[OIC]

This shows the number of applicants and spots offered for each residency nation-wide (for the 2011 match).

 

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/8087265/canadian-medical-residency-guide%20(dragged).pdf

 

As has been said, it is less competitive if you look at the numbers alone, but you are competing against a pool of generally very qualified applicants. I believe the most competitive were optho, plastics and derm (all hovering around 60% match rates).

[1234]

This shows the number of applicants and spots offered for each residency nation-wide (for the 2011 match).

 

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/8087265/canadian-medical-residency-guide%20(dragged).pdf

 

As has been said, it is less competitive if you look at the numbers alone, but you are competing against a pool of generally very qualified applicants. I believe the most competitive were optho, plastics and derm (all hovering around 60% match rates).

 

And these days, ophtho applicants who don't match the first time around are doing 1 year research fellowships with powerful academic ophthamologists and driving up competition through sheer numbers and application strength.

[ciel999]

The problem is you're not asking the right question....

 

 

Are residencies more competitive than med school applications? NO.

Are residency applications more stressful than med school apps? YES YES YES

 

WHY? Because you can apply to med school as many times as you want. Residency match determines your future CAREER. And you pretty much only get one chance to do it right.

That's interesting to know. So you basically only get one chance?

[OIC]

That's interesting to know. So you basically only get one chance?

 

Kinda. It isn't very common but people do switch. It is easier to switch residencies within the same university than it is to go somewhere else. Although, the competitive specialties are cognisant that some residents may go into an easier to obtain residency and then try to switch into the competitive one so they are on the lookout for that and discourage it (the director of UT residency programs gave us a talk). Sometimes people do additional residencies or stop partway and go start a new one...again this isn't common or easy.

[ciel999]

In general, residency apps is less competitive than medical school apps. However, rads, ophtho, plastics, derm, etc. are not necessarily more competitive by raw numbers comparison. However, if you look at the applicants, you will see that it is tremendously competitive. People that attempt to gain entrance in that field are no joke. Everyone has an excellent application. That parity makes it stressful.

 

And it is more stressful because it is a MAJOR fork in the road. And it is an EXTREMELY subjective process. People that are competitive for medical school apps can bank on their application itself. A lot of subjective factors, elective performance, their knowledge of you, have a huge impact on whether you get your desired spot. It is also more stressful if you have family/wife/kids/serious other because residency is not short for those that specialize and to have to uproot your family is tough.

I once read an article saying that ophthalmology residency positions are very competitive because there are hundreds of applicants for only one position. But if you want to increase your chance of getting the position, you can do some of the following:

-Marry the daughter of the chairman

-Do research in the field, and GET PUBLISHED in a well-acclaimed medical journal

-Win a national or international prize/award for your research

 

Do you think the article is exaggerating?

 

I also heard that knowing the right people can really help you get the residency position you want. Is that true? If yes, applying for competitive residency positions doesn't seem fair, compared to applying to medical school.

[Robin Hood]

I once read an article saying that ophthalmology residency positions are very competitive because there are hundreds of applicants for only one position. But if you want to increase your chance of getting the position, you can do some of the following:

-Marry the daughter of the chairman

-Do research in the field, and GET PUBLISHED in a well-acclaimed medical journal

-Win a national or international prize/award for your research

 

Do you think the article is exaggerating?

 

I also heard that knowing the right people can really help you get the residency position you want. Is that true? If yes, applying for competitive residency positions doesn't seem fair, compared to applying to medical school.

 

Life isn't fair.

[Lactic Folly]

-Do research in the field, and GET PUBLISHED in a well-acclaimed medical journal

Many top applicants to competitive specialties have publications.

 

I also heard that knowing the right people can really help you get the residency position you want. Is that true? If yes, applying for competitive residency positions doesn't seem fair, compared to applying to medical school.

No, it's not like medical school admissions, but it is similar to applying for a job in the real world.

[Hoote]

This shows the number of applicants and spots offered for each residency nation-wide (for the 2011 match).

 

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/8087265/canadian-medical-residency-guide%20(dragged).pdf

 

As has been said, it is less competitive if you look at the numbers alone, but you are competing against a pool of generally very qualified applicants. I believe the most competitive were optho, plastics and derm (all hovering around 60% match rates).

 

So what does a vacancy mean (for neurosurgery there were 2)? Does that mean that a school had applicants but didn't like any of them so they didn't rank them or does it mean there weren't any applicants who ranked that school?

[A-Stark]

Could mean either one really. In the second round this year there was the usual assortment of weird and unexpected spots - Neurology and Gen Surg in Calgary, Emerg at Mac - that can only really be explained by schools not ranking enough applicants to fill their spaces.

[KennethToronto]

I once read an article saying that ophthalmology residency positions are very competitive because there are hundreds of applicants for only one position. But if you want to increase your chance of getting the position, you can do some of the following:

-Marry the daughter of the chairman

-Do research in the field, and GET PUBLISHED in a well-acclaimed medical journal

-Win a national or international prize/award for your research

 

Do you think the article is exaggerating?

 

I also heard that knowing the right people can really help you get the residency position you want. Is that true? If yes, applying for competitive residency positions doesn't seem fair, compared to applying to medical school.

 

Everyone applying to a competitive specialty has multiple publications in 'well-acclaimed' journals. This isn't even an exception, but just the minimum to get yourself into the game.

 

If we stick to looking at raw numbers, it sure does look better than getting into medical school - but let's be honest, there's a bunch of barely qualified applicants applying to medical school ever year. There is a lot less noise in the CaRMS match. By the time CaRMS rolls around, you can bet that anyone going for the competitive specialties will have done their homework and checked off all the boxes that can be checked. The application numbers don't capture the fact there are people who voluntarily removed themselves from going for certain specialties because the way the system is setup, you can't just waltz into the area of your choosing.

 

In addition, there are so many more unknown factors and soft factors that influence decisions - and the smaller the programs and more competitive they are, the greater these weigh. I think it's hard to appreciate CaRMS when you're still applying to medical school or in preclerkship, but I think anyone applying needs to know that competing for things doesn't magically disappear once you get into medical school, and that the game gets harder and the rules less clear, and the stakes are sometimes higher (i.e. if you are going for a specific location because you've put down roots, etc).

[rogerroger]

All in all I have a hard time comparing med apps and CaRMS. They are so different. I am glad both processes are over. I didn't apply to derm or optho or anything, but I did appy to somthing which is statistically on the more competitive side of the curve. A lot of the anxiety over competitiveness melted away on the interview tour. You keep seeing the same people over and over as you travel city to city you realize that odds are in your favor.

 

All that time spent pre-CaRMS is to get yourself into that core group of applicants with a bunch of interviews. In a sense this is similar to med apps. How competitive things are can change drastically with a bunch of interviews under your belt and like med apps there is a core group of competitive applicants interviewing at most programs. This core group is smaller than the total applicants you see on CaRMS's web site. For the more competitive specialities CaRMS stats are skewed, out of 60 applicants total how many were in that core group that interviewed almost everywhere? That core group is composed of the people who got their research done, have done a bunch of electives in the speciality, have throughly done their research on the speciality itself, and got LOR that made them stand out from the pile and worked with the people whose opinion is well known and regarded. Is this stuff hard to do? I don't think its intellectualy hard. I really think anyone who gets into medical school can have a good chance of matching into anything they want with a touch of luck.

 

During the tour you get to know that core group of people as you hang out together for 2 weeks roaming Canada. In my speciality litteraly everyone who was in that group got a spot and for the vast majority in their top three locations. At every program there were bunch of new faces that appeared and disappeared at the next round of interviews and it is those people that inflate the applicant stats you see on CaRMS.

 

This brings me to another point. Being location flexible is a bigger deal in CaRMS than med apps. Flexibility in my opinion is what makes CaRMS less or more stressful. Realisticlly one has to be flexible regarding location if they want a competitive speciality. When there are only 2-4 somthing spots in your desired city and 30-50 solid applicants (you know they are soild because they have been at every school interviewing) luck and "program fit" is a major factor. If one is happy with only one particular city than odds are they won't be a happy camper come match day. The odds are rarely if ever going to be in your favor because it's just shy of a lottery when there are that many people who will always be similar CV and potential wise. If one is very location focused than I think you have no choice but to be speciality flexible. However, the picture becomes considerably more rosy if you are location flexible and have a handful of interviews. There is a core group of about 40-60% of the total who are uber-competitive and are interviewing at many if not most programs. Prior to CaRMS figuring out and doing what it takes to be in this group is what I suggest focusing on rather than CaRMS stats.

 

 

Wow, this post turned out to be much longer than I anticipated, but that was my expirence with CaRMS. I hope that helps provides some insight!

[rogerroger]

What kind of research do they care about?

 

Does it have to be in their specialty?

 

Does it have to be clinical?

 

Or can it just be basic research?

 

Well I'm just a 4th year med student. But I can reiterate what I have been told by those who are more knowledgable than me in internal CaRMS matters.

 

Now I can't talk about derm or optho those are in a totally different realm. But generally any research is good research. It shows you understand what it is about and are okay doing it. It is even better if you were involved in the design of the project as that gives you an avenue to talk anout that skill set. Of course having speciality specific research is the ideal and I would suspect requirment for the extremes of optho or derm.

 

The same goes with publishing. Publishing in a big journal is better than a smaller one and publishing somthing is better than nothing. I know many of my UofT classmates who had extensive expirence in both clinical and wet lab research.

 

Is it possible to get a bunch of interviews for somthing less competitive than derm but more competitive than say IM with non-speciality specific research? Yes, most definitely. Often I was asked about my non-speciality specific research in the context of what I learned from participating in such projects and how these lessons could assist in future research within the speciality I matched too.

[Lactic Folly]

+1 to rogerroger's post.

 

As for the type of research, if they are trying to get a sense of you as a motivated, hardworking, capable person, any research will be helpful as long as you have been productive with your time. Doing research in your specialty of interest will help demonstrate your interest in that field of medicine, as well as give you the opportunity to work with those well-known in the field (and benefit from the associated name recognition).