when did urology become so competitive??

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so i'm wondering was urology always so competitive to get into given its lifestyle and limited spots across the country or did something in particular make it suddenly very very competitive in the last few years or so??

Originally Posted by gooze

so i'm wondering was urology always so competitive to get into given its lifestyle and limited spots across the country or did something in particular make it suddenly very very competitive in the last few years or so??

It used to be much worse... in like 2005-2006, the match rate was 67% (77% for US seniors).

I think the competitive match is due to a combination of a) urology being work that people enjoy, b) lifestyle and mix of medicine + surgery, and c) the # of residency spots is difficult to expand (though very much needed), especially in small fields like urology.

There are actual numbers to look at: http://www.auanet.org/content/reside...cfm#statistics. I don't see anything that I would call "suddenly very very competitive" or "used to be much worse" in these numbers. Year to year fluctuations and overall trend are not particularly exciting.

Number of positions is slowly, steadily growing (~20% increase in 10 years). By contrast, In all specialties there was about a 15% increase in 10 years.

Originally Posted by DrMidlife

There are actual numbers to look at: http://www.auanet.org/content/reside...cfm#statistics. I don't see anything that I would call "suddenly very very competitive" or "used to be much worse" in these numbers. Year to year fluctuations and overall trend are not particularly exciting.

If you neglect 2012 data points (which I hadn't seen), it looks like the overall match rate used to be much worse (70% of US seniors matching in 2009 with an increase to 86% in 2011). But your point is well-taken, and the year-to-year fluctuation is clearly huge in a small field like urology.