For those who SOAPed last year, how did you cope with not getting into specialty you wanted?

[genessis42]

I think many med students are the usual Type A who would be unhappy if the match wasn't their too choice, so I think changing specialties can be even tougher.

But every year there will be US graduates who go unmatched

How did you guys feel after you SOAPed into a program and started residency?

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[HopelessMS]

You take advantage of the opportunity. Do the disappointment phase quickly, then be grateful and graduate. No one cares whether you soaped once you’re an attending.

 

[clausewitz2]

You take advantage of the opportunity. Do the disappointment phase quickly, then be grateful and graduate. No one cares whether you soaped once you’re an attending.

"I was referred to Dr So-and-So, but I really would prefer to see someone who didn't go drop below the top 5 of their Match list" said nobody ever.

I can't speak to this from personal experience. However. When you're in a bad situation, DBT teaches us that we have four main options:

1) Leave the situation. This involves quitting medicine. Not ideal.

2) Change how you feel about the situation. You have some power over this, although not guaranteed. Usually involves changing up the aspects you focus on. Reflect on what is good about the fact that you SOAP'd versus not SOAPing successfully. What does it make possible that having failed at it would prevent?

3) Radically accept the situation. This doesn't mean you have to like it or feel positively about what happened, just that you treat it as a fact about the world. You hate that it's true, but you took your shot at the specialty or programs you wanted and whiffed. Whatever happens, you will never not have had to SOAP. That simply cannot be undone. There is not an actually existing counterfactual world you can get to where you didn't have to SOAP. Unless you matched into interventional chronology, I guess.

4) Stay miserable. A live option, clearly, based on these boards.

 

[dozitgetchahi]

I have not had the experience of feeling what it’s like to SOAP, but I’d try to feel grateful that I had a position and that the work I had put in up to this point to become a physician was still going to likely translate into me finishing a residency and having a job doing what I had trained for (albeit, maybe not in my chosen specialty). You may actually find that you really like it after a while. If you don’t, you can look at changing specialties etc. But by far the most important thing is not to end up with an extremely expensive piece of paper (your medical degree) that is functionally useless.

 

[the_teej]

I SOAPed after failing to match EM with good test scores, good grades. IDK, maybe a bad letter or something?

I SOAPed into a family med program. Crushed it, was chief, now a hospitalist. Haven’t looked back. Probably feel better off, seems like EM physicians are struggling and I really enjoy the week on/week off predictable lifestyle, no nights, and make good money.

If you dont match, you have either two choices. #1, you can’t see yourself doing anything else than the specialty you applied for? Do a transition year/prelim year and reapply next year, hope for the best. #2, you love medicine, and will be ok doing something else. Go for family, IM, gen surg, whatever you want, crush it, and make your career into the career you want it to be.

 

[gutonc]

I SOAPed after failing to match EM with good test scores, good grades. IDK, maybe a bad letter or something?

I SOAPed into a family med program. Crushed it, was chief, now a hospitalist. Haven’t looked back. Probably feel better off, seems like EM physicians are struggling and I really enjoy the week on/week off predictable lifestyle, no nights, and make good money.

If you dont match, you have either two choices. #1, you can’t see yourself doing anything else than the specialty you applied for? Do a transition year/prelim year and reapply next year, hope for the best. #2, you love medicine, and will be ok doing something else. Go for family, IM, gen surg, whatever you want, crush it, and make your career into the career you want it to be.

I think that a lot of us who didn't have to SOAP would give the same advice. But that's easy for us to say and it definitely hits different coming from someone who did.

So, thanks for this, and I'm glad that things have worked out well for you.