The contiguous rank curve for Family Medicine

[gabdel]

I was looking at the recent match data by nrmp for IMGs and I noticed every single specialty reached the 90% match rate at about 10 interviews except for family medicine which needed about 18 to reach 90%. This is a bit scary because I want to match family medicine.

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[organdonor]

I think you are over analyzing your data. The take home point is going to be that family medicine is one of the least competitive specialties, but matching has become increasingly difficult lately especially with IMG's.

By only using that one data point (number of interviews vs match rate) you are introducing many kinds of bias into your interpretation.

If you'd like more specific advice post a link to where you got your data.

 

[gabdel]

I think you are over analyzing your data. The take home point is going to be that family medicine is one of the least competitive specialties, but matching has become increasingly difficult lately especially with IMG's.

By only using that one data point (number of interviews vs match rate) you are introducing many kinds of bias into your interpretation.

If you'd like more specific advice post a link to where you got your data.

http://www.nrmp.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Charting-Outcomes-2014-Final.pdf

Go to page 86

 

[repititionition]

you need to understand the applicant distribution for a specialty before you understand the contiguous ranks curve.

 

[Mad Jack]

The applicants to FM are often much less competitive. It's not like FM is hard to get into, it's just that it's a backup specialty for so many people and the specialty that many, many IMGs and FMGs apply to, which pushes the contiguous ranks number up.

 

[gabdel]

The applicants to FM are often much less competitive. It's not like FM is hard to get into, it's just that it's a backup specialty for so many people and the specialty that many, many IMGs and FMGs apply to, which pushes the contiguous ranks number up.

Does that mean if people use FM as backup and get matched into their choic specialty they would be still considered unmatched for family medicine?

 

[Mad Jack]

Does that mean if people use FM as backup and get matched into their choic specialty they would be still considered unmatched for family medicine?

No. Charting outcomes only uses preferred specialty, in other words, their first choice. I was speaking more to overall match numbers than the charting outcomes data- it's entirely possible that the people who apply with that many ranks with FM as their primary choice specialty are highly uncompetitive applicants to begin with.

 

[gabdel]

No. Charting outcomes only uses preferred specialty, in other words, their first choice. I was speaking more to overall match numbers than the charting outcomes data- it's entirely possible that the people who apply with that many ranks with FM as their primary choice specialty are highly uncompetitive applicants to begin with.

I think your argument would make sense if we were talking about people not getting interviews. Your place in the rank order list is what ultimately determines whether you match or not, and that is dependent on your personality during interviews not your stats. So I think its unlikely that someone who is highly noncompetitive would get that much interviews in the first place.

 

[thxleave]

It could be people not getting interviews and just ranking places to qualify for SOAP.