Quoted: Weak program or do transitional year - surgery

[Doodledog]

posted for a member

Hi
As my Rank Order List is due this Friday, I'm having some serious doubts about a surgical program on my list. During the interview I was impressed by many of the things I was told, but never rotated there. I have discovered that although the surgical program appears solid, the other two residencies at this hospital are so weak that they have not matched a resident in a few years...meaning there would be no senior IM residents on call during my intern year to help teach. If those programs are so weak, could it reflect on the surgical program?

Of course other issues factor in. It's out of state and far from a major city so my husband would have a hard time finding work, and it has a very low ER volume which is also a concern. At the same time I'm not a terribly strong applicant - which begs the question...

Would a potentially weak program be better than doing a transitional year and trying again?

My inclination would be to go for the categorical spot at what might be a weaker program, but we'll see what others say.

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[NotAProgDirector]

Since your ROL is due friday, I expect you're a DO in the AOA match (where all ROL's are due friday). So, by Transitional Year, you mean a TRI. I clarify this because TY's on the allo side of things are very competitive.

Unfortunately, I can't really answer your question. In the allo match, doing a prelim surgery year at a really good program sometimes helps weaker candidates obtain a better categorical spot -- but that's only if they do very well in their prelim. Given that TRI's don't have all that much surgery in them (usually), I don't see this really helping you. But honestly, I'm guessing here.