Should I Try For Some Transitionals, Or Just Go For Prelim Medicine?

[Llenroc]

Hi. I'm a 3rd year medical student. I go to a top 50 ranked medical school, but I've made a number of mistakes a long the way and I'm probably in the bottom 20% of my class. My 3rd year clerkship grades aren't the greatest. My Step 1 was 218.

Fortunately for me, I'm thinking about going into PM&R, which is one of the least competetive specialties. However, you do have to do one year of transitional medicine/preliminary medicine/preliminary surgery before going into it.

People say that transitional year programs are even harder to get than Radiology residencies, and I'm definitely not competetive for a Radiology residency. Should I even bother with apps to Transitional year programs, or should I just focus on trying to get a Prelim Medicine spot?

That said, how hard is it to get Prelim Medicine spots? I haven't seen many figures on applications/acceptances.

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[kaizen]

You can always find a prelim med spot somewhere...

Transitionals are tough to get but worth the risk of wasting your $ applying IMHO. Not all transitionals are 'better' than prelim years so you should take a look at both. It's also easier to get great transitional years in unpopular cities. So being geographically flexible will work to your advantage. It's only $60 to apply to 10 and $140 to apply to 20. You might as well over-apply than under.

 

[Llenroc]

My understanding of the match is that most of the people who have to scramble end up doing so into Preliminary Medicine spots, correct? Are there any sort of statistics out there on how many Prelim Med spots don't get filled?

 

[guy_incognito]

People say that transitional year programs are even harder to get than Radiology residencies, and I'm definitely not competetive for a Radiology residency. Should I even bother with apps to Transitional year programs, or should I just focus on trying to get a Prelim Medicine spot?

I remember hearing this as well, that TY and Rads are just as difficult. As a matter of fact, I am applying to both Rads and TY this year (no prelim medicine). I think I am a well-qualified applicant, so I thought I would get a decent amount of interviews for both programs. I ended up doing my applications based almost purely on regional biases. In the end, I got a lot of rejections for Radiology that were somewhat surprising. However, for TY I got interviews to 10 out of the 11 places I applied to (never heard from the last, but don't really have any interest in it).

So in my very limited, anecdotal experience, TY in easier to get into than Radiology. Now this doesn't really answer your question... I would have to agree with the others, it is definitely worth applying.

In general, a lot of the TY programs tend to be at community programs. These are not always in the most desirable areas, so I am sure that there are plenty that are not nearly as competitive. There is a lot of variation within TY programs, as there is with prelim med programs. So depending on the setup, the two programs don't always differ by all that much. Nevertheless, I'd still prefer TY over prelim med.

 

[guy_incognito]

My understanding of the match is that most of the people who have to scramble end up doing so into Preliminary Medicine spots, correct? Are there any sort of statistics out there on how many Prelim Med spots don't get filled?

The NRMP website has this info. The table at the following link lists this data; http://www.nrmp.org/res_match/tables/table5_06.pdf

If I am interpretting it correctly, there were 1943 total prelim spots, 1469 filled by US seniors, and 1749 total spots filled by all applicants.

 

[redbird]

Kaizen or those who can help,
I applied to 10 prelim in NOV, got 0 interveiw, IS it too late to apply now? I had interveiws in advanced programs,but need first year position.
This is so depressing.

 

[dancerMD]

From what I've seen, most programs only accept applications through December, so it probably is too late to apply now. However, you should have no problem scrambling for a prelim spot as long as you are not too picky about location.

 

[ideas]

From what I've seen, most programs only accept applications through December, so it probably is too late to apply now. However, you should have no problem scrambling for a prelim spot as long as you are not too picky about location.

Can someone explain to me the benefits of doing a transitional year instead of a prelim in medicine? Sorry, I am just learning about the two.

 

[(nicedream)]

Can someone explain to me the benefits of doing a transitional year instead of a prelim in medicine? Sorry, I am just learning about the two.

Prelim med year means doing a lot of med, which means tougher schedule and more call. TY's can be more cush if they let you choose a lot of electives and easier rotations.

 

[90 diopter]

I did a transitional year in a very cush program. The difference is the amount of time off you want and if you really want to learn internal medicine well. Medicine is pretty irrelevant to my field, so I chose the easy route- my first month, I worked a cumulative total of 18 hours and spent my time climbing mountains. It was awesome. If you wanna learn medicine, do a prelim. If you want a really nice year off before your real residency, pick a good TY.

 

[redbird]

In the worst case, one could not match to a prelim but matched to an advance position. During post match, can he apply for internal med and family med and stay for a year and leave afterwards?

 

[Jumpu]

I have met a number of residents who matched fine for their PGY2 and onwards residencies, but had to scramble for their prelim year. Of the three I know personally, they all managed to get positions. Most were fine with the places they ended up at but realize you will likely scramble for places that could not fill (ie. were not as desirable). One of them signed onto a family medicine year with the understanding at that program that it was only for a year and since the program didn't fill, they needed a 'body' to take call and load off of the other categorical family med interns. Don't lose hope, I dont think scrambling for your prelim year will be a total nightmare (just a minor one one hopes).

 

[redbird]

Thank you Jumpu! Good Luck for you