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Rads 2014 Unfilled spots


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yeah I am just jumping the gun a little bit :) He said it was a tough year overall.

 

Definitely still a tough year. Despite the leftover spots I know of someone who did not match to radiology and did not back up. He/she's now unmatched. :(

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It's strange. I applied to rads, got a good number of interviews, and matched to a "competitive" location... But I didn't even get an interview at Calgary, and now they are left with unmatched spots. I spoke to a few people along the trail who didn't interview in Calgary.

 

Maybe they got cocky with their interviews and invited too narrowly?

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I find this year to be a little odd for rads, they had apparently a significant reduction in applicants, which appeared to be well known and still there were unmatched spots. It seems like most programs interview 5-6x the number of spots at least so it seems a little odd no?

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It seems like most programs interview 5-6x the number of spots at least so it seems a little odd no?

 

I think the programs I interviewed at had more than 5-6x. Queens was 10:1, Mac & Dal more like 10:1, Manitoba 6:1.

 

I noticed on the trail that there were a number of people who did apply to other specialties as well, not considering them backups. Maybe in the end they chose something other than rads. Probably not as typical as it used to be where you went full steam with rads and that was it.

 

In the end, I applied for two other specialties myself, and decided more and more as the interview trail went on that rads wasn't for me. I still ranked the programs, but not that highly.

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Definitely still a tough year. Despite the leftover spots I know of someone who did not match to radiology and did not back up. He/she's now unmatched. :(

 

ouch.....

 

part of this is likely rads programs are used to recruiting what they consider top notch candidates. Even the face of non filling spots they won't take people they don't think lower tier (not to argue they are always right in that assessment). So far they haven't had to really worry too much about that policy - it is a competitive desired field and their approach has served them well over quite sometime.

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It's 'ouch' to be unmatched but in a way it's even worse to be matched to a backup. The unmatched have a second chance at their dream...

 

well you shouldn't back up with something you don't want to do of course :)

 

The second time around match statistics are pretty bad - You don't seem to get a lot of brownie points for waiting around and trying again in many specialties.

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I think the programs I interviewed at had more than 5-6x. Queens was 10:1, Mac & Dal more like 10:1, Manitoba 6:1.

 

I noticed on the trail that there were a number of people who did apply to other specialties as well, not considering them backups. Maybe in the end they chose something other than rads. Probably not as typical as it used to be where you went full steam with rads and that was it.

 

In the end, I applied for two other specialties myself, and decided more and more as the interview trail went on that rads wasn't for me. I still ranked the programs, but not that highly.

 

in response to the low number of applicants I know this year some schools responded by upping the number of people they interviewed - widened the net as it were.

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For individuals considering rads, is the reason for the drop in applicants and now unfilled spots the fall in remuneration, uncertainty of the specialty moving into the future, lack of patient contact and job of reading films all day? Hasn't all this been known for several years yet the drops in applicants has occurred over the last 2 years?

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For individuals considering rads, is the reason for the drop in applicants and now unfilled spots the fall in remuneration, uncertainty of the specialty moving into the future, lack of patient contact and job of reading films all day? Hasn't all this been known for several years yet the drops in applicants has occurred over the last 2 years?

 

 

You know, the lack of patient contact and reading films all day is pretty much the reason why we choose rads! It is not a downer for everybody.

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Fees will likely fall slightly or at best, stagnate and let inflation reduce them slowly relative to other specialties. However, this is more of a correction due to the HUGE increase in fees (much higher than other specialties) in RADS over the past decade. The OMA lists RADS are one of the top 'overvalued' specialties. That sounds bad, but really they are simply saying that they are paid too much compared to other specialties will similar training lengths and workloads...seems fair to me.

 

I also want to say that people are worried too much about RADS fees falling. There is no way they will allow the OMA to agree to huge cuts to RADS fees. And really, they are one of the highest paid specialties, and if the prospect of grossing $400,000+ instead of $500,000+ is what makes you steer away from RADS then it was clearly not your field to begin with.

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On a related note, I had a meeting with my career counselor recently and inquired as to why radiology seemed to be somewhat falling out of favour - whereupon I was immediately and rather forcefully informed that the specialty was only getting more and more competitive to match into. The counselor described the unmatched spots as "anomalies" that did not reflect the true level of competition.

 

Not quite sure what to believe at this point. Maybe the counselor just wanted to warn me against falling back on hopes of things getting easier.

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