How many pain interviews?

[244913]

Hey all,

I'm trying to get a feel for how many pain fellowship interviews puts you in a "sweet spot" for matching. With the advent of the match in October, I feel like there is a lot of uncertainty, cloak and dagger stuff going on, with some places interviewing in March and others not even offering IV's until August.

I'm an Anesthesiology resident from a mid-tier program with no home fellowship. I've got 8 interviews so far out of 34 places applied to. I've been rejected from 7 and haven't heard from another 18-19. I've got > 90% ITE and BASIC scores.

What is a "safe number" of interviews? It's a pain in the ass getting time away so I figured on stopping at 10 interviews if I'm lucky enough to get a couple more.

Also, judging by that pain match thread, there are a bunch of places who've already offered IV's even as far back as 6 weeks ago but I still haven't heard from them either yay or nay. Is this a common experience for folks? At what point do we write off the possibility of a late interview? Do some of the programs continue to offer IV's late into the summer as they get a feel for how many they people they need to canvass to match?

I'd love to hear everyone's perspective about this process. It seems disorganized and strung out way too long what with ERAS going offline etc.

Thanks

- ex 61N

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[Nonphysiologic]

Idk, I'm from Neuro with 5 interviews this far...Similar amount of rejections. Looking to get 10 to feel "safe" after talking to other senior residents/fellows

 

[paininthe]

I think for Anesthesia and PMR (with no home fellowships) 10 should be safe, for those with a home fellowships 8 is a good enough number. For rest of the specialties, I think 12.

Then this is just an assumption, am an applicant myself and haven't yet achieved the above mentioned figures, so am as scared as you!

 

[hrmm]

Hey all,

I'm trying to get a feel for how many pain fellowship interviews puts you in a "sweet spot" for matching. With the advent of the match in October, I feel like there is a lot of uncertainty, cloak and dagger stuff going on, with some places interviewing in March and others not even offering IV's until August.

I'm an Anesthesiology resident from a mid-tier program with no home fellowship. I've got 8 interviews so far out of 34 places applied to. I've been rejected from 7 and haven't heard from another 18-19. I've got > 90% ITE and BASIC scores.

What is a "safe number" of interviews? It's a pain in the ass getting time away so I figured on stopping at 10 interviews if I'm lucky enough to get a couple more.

You'll be fine with 8 interviews coming from anesthesia. Not being offered interviews from the other places doesn't mean you're not qualified. ERAS has made it so easy for applicants to mass apply to a ton of programs. Therefore these programs are much more stringent on who to offer interviews as they do not want to give interviews to applicants who have no true intention of attending the fellowship (eg. over-qualified applicants, applicants with little/no ties to the area).

 

[oreosandsake]

I definitely know a few people that interviewed at 10 programs and didn't match. one each year of the match so far. both anesthesiologists. one from a top tier program

 

[Agast]

Go on every single interview you are invited to. I understand that traveling is expensive and it's a pain in the ass, but there aren't that many spots to begin with and there are plenty of interesting non-anesthesiology applicants that programs would be happy to take. As a fly on the wall, listening to my program director talk about past applicants, there are plenty of people who look good on paper who aren't that likeable in person. You'd be kicking yourself if you didn't match this year and unfortunately there are no stats on non-matched applicants that breaks them down by primary specialty.