Tuesday, March 21, 2017

Critical Advice for your Journey to Residency

The match is becoming exceedingly competitive. This is something that is common knowledge. In this post I will share some statistics from the match that I find interesting, as well as my thoughts on how to approach the match because of this.

A record number of people applied for the 2017 NRMP Match: 43, 157. Of this number 39, 969 candidates were considered to be active, i.e. after taking out those that withdrew or made no rank list. Of the active applicants 23% (8281 applicants) did not match. This comes up to almost a quarter of the number of active applicants.

IMG’s –US and Non US- made up the bulk of the 8000+ of active applicants that did not match, making up a whooping 72% of them.

When you look at only the IMG’s, 40-50% of the active applicants that applied did not match. 

What does all of this mean for you, who is considering to apply next time? What points am I trying to leave you with? 

I want you to keep two things in mind.

First, not all foreign Schools are equal. The top four Caribbean schools place upwards of 70% of their graduates into residency position – for the American University of the Caribbean I believe that is 80% or more of their students match, which is significantly higher than total IMG match percentage of 50+ percent. This makes sense since the IMG match percentage is just an average, and with averages some samples can be way larger. If you go to  one of those schools you have a leg up on your competition. If not there is still hope.

Secondly, my main purpose in writing this is not to discourage you from applying as an IMG –whether US IMG, non USIMG, from the Caribbean school or not from a Caribbean school. Instead, I want you take the application process serious so that you can increase your chances at matching. Throughout this year, I have interacted with other applicants at interviews and other places, many of whom I kept in contact with. Most of these people ended with matching. These people and I had one thing in common. Focus.

Focus on your Step exams. Do not take them lightly. Pass everything on first attempt and do as well as you can. If you feel like you will not do well, or that you are not ready for the exam, then you should take a class. Do not say you won’t just because it costs money. That money that you will spend to make sure you pass your exams in one shot will save you tens of thousands –yes, ten thousand or more- that you will spend applying again and again because you could not match.

Focus on your interviews. If there was one thing that annoys the living hell out of me, it was hearing that I wasn’t ready for the interview. Huh? You had only one interview and you did not prepare for it. Come on!!!

In short, while AMGs and some Caribbean schools might have a leg up on their competition, everyone can increase their chances at the match with the right focus. 

Good luck on your journey to a match!

P.S: For one of my next posts, I might share my journey of applying to the match 3 times so stay tuned. 

Reference:

2 comments:

  1. I don't know dude, sounds like Caribbean school is a bad idea, better to wait for maybe US MD and save money if it never happens vs wait for residency after Carib MD.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Your best option is always to attempt to get into an American medical school. However, if for whatever reasons -and these vary- you can't attend an American medical school Your next best option would be in the top 4 Caribbean medical schools: AUC, SGU, ROSS, and SABA.

    For perspective, AUC places a higher percentage of students in the nrmp match than American DO schools. Plus in the past two years AUC has placed a student in Ortho, and also in vascular surgery. Do how difficult those are to match in?

    Consequently, Caribbean schools are definitely a great route... Just be ready to work hard.

    ReplyDelete