Should you do residency where you ultimately want to live?

[Psychczar]

I ended up ranking the northeast program 1st with input from my wife as well, and the program in the city I ultimately want to live as 2. I'm already regretting it and feel sick every time I think about match and relieved and happy if I match at 2. I'm assuming there's absolutely nothing to be done at this point. Any idea what the percentage is of people who match at their first choice?

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[MacDonaldTriad]

I ended up ranking the northeast program 1st with input from my wife as well, and the program in the city I ultimately want to live as 2. I'm already regretting it and feel sick every time I think about match and relieved and happy if I match at 2. I'm assuming there's absolutely nothing to be done at this point. Any idea what the percentage is of people who match at their first choice?

The 2014 NRMP data shows that for all specialties (not just psych), Of US grads, 51.6% got their first choice, 15.5% got 2nd, 9.8% got 3rd, 5.8% got 4th, and 12.4% went lower than 4th, but matched. Only 4.8% went unmatched.

For the Non-US grads, it is harder to interpret as these lump all specialties from plastic surgery to psych, but probably psych would be more optimistic. The numbers are 29.1% got #1, 11.3% #2, 7.1% #3, 4.0% #4, and 7.0% >4, and 41.6% didn’t match.

I’m afraid you have about a 50/50% chance of being in the north east.

 

[wannabie]

I have no idea where I want to live four years from now. I only know where I think is best for me on match day. If you had asked me at the end of my undergraduate education to list places I wanted to live in, I wouldn't have listed Aruba or Baltimore in my top five hundred. And yet, I was quite pleased to live in both places.

There's merit in improvising on the fly. Getting locked up in the idea of a place often precludes important possibilities. It's probably just because I'm young and unaccustomed to the idea that possible outcomes to my life diminish as I get older, but I advocate for not postponing dreams and hopes indefinitely.

 

[whopper]

It should be a major factor. It's a real bummer moving after you've placed roots. I've done it several times. Each time a piece of me is left at the other place. I still majorly miss friends and colleagues at University of Cincinnati, and at my resident program. I miss my old D&D gaming group, miss Grater's ice cream, my old house, the social workers on my unit, doing private forensic cases with my old mentor at U of C.

But it shouldn't be the only factor. The top people in the field I've seen move several times because that's a significant reason why they advanced. They got to the top in their locality and the only way to move further up was to go to a new location.