Hi

I matched to an internal medicine program in an afflia. hospital in michigan. Pretty good looking program with a major affliation to a university program and four subspecialities. Do I have any chance to switch my program to a major program by the end of my internship or no? and to apply for a PGY2 , should i go thru Match again? Need to say I accepted to a catego. program
Thanks for your comments.

You sound happy with your program (pretty good looking program with a major affiliation to a university program and four subspecialties)... why switch? If you are looking to switch in the hope of better fellowship chances (in a 'major' program as you said), then you might be better off sticking to your program. You start the fellowship application process in the beginning of the second year of residency and if you transfer to a new program, you cannot expect to get good letters of recommendations from the new program since you would be new there. And letters of recommendations are a BIG thing in your fellowship application.

Anyway to answer your question, you can surely move to another program for PGY-2. Many programs have openings each year. You will have to convince your PD of the need to transfer since you will need his/her letter to transfer to any other program. You don't have to go through the Match for these PGY-2 openings in Categorical Internal Medicine, you will have to apply directly to the programs. Keep your eyes on these sites which carry postings of open PGY-2 positions:

http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/category/6986.html

http://www.im.org/cgi-bin/org-jobbank?org=aaim&jfx=writechooser&typedir=trainee

Also you can directly contact programs and ask them if they have any open positions. Most programs usually know by December if they would have any open PGY-2 positions for the coming July.

Good luck!

Thanks a lot man