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- Aug 13, 2008
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The NRMP data only really tabulates whether students have matched at all in a specialty and it doesn't really say anything about the reputation of the programs to which the students are matching. The MD/PhD students that match could be matching at better programs than the 90% of MD students that match.
Both anecdotal information and tabulated lists of where students have matched from programs bear that out, to an extent. MD/PhD grads are over-represented at big name academic programs compared to MD-only grads from their schools. Top programs in some fields will selectively interview and match more MD/PhDs. You can tell this from looking at the lists of residents at programs. Of course, there will never be a linear regression that proves this, but casually perusing the lists can convince most people it's true.
But just as calvinNhobbes thinks I'm disagreeing with him, I'll agree with the bit about the bias. Most of what I described above could be due to confounding factors. MD/PhD students were selected from a more competitive pool when they were applying to MSTPs because they had higher MCAT (were better test takers), had good grades (did well in classes), had demonstrated interest in research, and had good LOR (were generally likable). Now, residency programs are selecting people for high step 1 (better test takers again), AOA (again people who do well in class), have done research, and are generally likable. It's no coincidence that that this selects the same people.
It also reminds me of one of my interviews, though. It was at a mid-to-lower tier academic rads program, probably the least prestigious place I interviewed. The guy was sitting in front of me with my packet which contained letters, my list of tons of publications, scores, and grades. My school doesn't give out AOA until January of your 4th year, but I had H on 5/7 core rotations at the time. This guy grilled me for 5 minutes on why I didn't know whether I was going to be AOA (which I ultimately was NOT). As I left the room he said,
"Just make sure you let the program know when you find out about AOA!"
Both anecdotal information and tabulated lists of where students have matched from programs bear that out, to an extent. MD/PhD grads are over-represented at big name academic programs compared to MD-only grads from their schools. Top programs in some fields will selectively interview and match more MD/PhDs. You can tell this from looking at the lists of residents at programs. Of course, there will never be a linear regression that proves this, but casually perusing the lists can convince most people it's true.
But just as calvinNhobbes thinks I'm disagreeing with him, I'll agree with the bit about the bias. Most of what I described above could be due to confounding factors. MD/PhD students were selected from a more competitive pool when they were applying to MSTPs because they had higher MCAT (were better test takers), had good grades (did well in classes), had demonstrated interest in research, and had good LOR (were generally likable). Now, residency programs are selecting people for high step 1 (better test takers again), AOA (again people who do well in class), have done research, and are generally likable. It's no coincidence that that this selects the same people.
It also reminds me of one of my interviews, though. It was at a mid-to-lower tier academic rads program, probably the least prestigious place I interviewed. The guy was sitting in front of me with my packet which contained letters, my list of tons of publications, scores, and grades. My school doesn't give out AOA until January of your 4th year, but I had H on 5/7 core rotations at the time. This guy grilled me for 5 minutes on why I didn't know whether I was going to be AOA (which I ultimately was NOT). As I left the room he said,
"Just make sure you let the program know when you find out about AOA!"
