2023 Match Data

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As a white male 26x/28x who just failed to match at my top 4 “elite” programs I think this is probably accurate. Maybe it was something else in my interview but I had many advisors tell me I would go anywhere I wanted. All of those “elite” programs strongly promote diversity with included dei curriculums in the anesthesia residencies. Instead I fell to a middle of the road program.

Burner account for obvious reasons.


Looking through the latest match at some of the “elite” anesthesia programs, I noticed 2 things.

1. They seem to be increasingly drawing from “elite” medical schools (Stanford/Columbia/Vanderbilt/etc) In the past, they drew a lot more from solid mid-tier medical schools (Jefferson/Penn State/etc). This may be a reflection of the increasing popularity and competitiveness of anesthesia.

2. They also seem to be increasingly matching candidates with interest and background in “global health” initiatives. That wasn’t even a thing 10 years ago. Makes sense since those institutions are always trying to impart a global footprint. They’re not really trying to attract graduates who want to do private practice in affluent suburban communities (even though most of their grads still end up going that route.).

I think your advisors were correct in that you would likely have matched at an elite program in years past. But it looks like this year’s match was a different game.

The good news is that you can become an outstanding anesthesiologist from a “middle of the road” anesthesia program. You just need the internal drive to become a great doctor. Obviously you are highly intelligent and driven so you have the tools. I know you are disappointed but seriously congratulations on matching and best of luck on your journey.
 
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Looking through the latest match at some of the “elite” anesthesia programs, I noticed 2 things.

1. They seem to be increasingly drawing from “elite” medical schools (Stanford/Columbia/Vanderbilt/etc) In the past, they drew a lot more from solid mid-tier medical schools (Jefferson/Penn State/etc). This may be a reflection of the increasing popularity and competitiveness of anesthesia.

2. They also seem to be increasingly matching candidates with interest and background in “global health” initiatives. That wasn’t even a thing 10 years ago. Makes sense since those institutions are always trying to impart a global footprint. They’re not really trying to attract graduates who want to do private practice in affluent suburban communities (even though most of their grads still end up going that route.).

I think your advisors were correct in that you would likely have matched at an elite program in years past. But it looks like this year’s match was a different game.

The good news is that you can become an outstanding anesthesiologist from a “middle of the road” anesthesia program. You just need the internal drive to become a great doctor. Obviously you are highly intelligent and driven so you have the tools. I know you are disappointed but seriously congratulations on matching and best of luck on your journey.
Isn’t the boards now pass/fail? Do the programs actually see the scores now? If not, maybe that’s why they’re taking so many from the top med schools now.
 
Isn’t the boards now pass/fail? Do the programs actually see the scores now? If not, maybe that’s why they’re taking so many from the top med schools now.


That’s very possible. I don’t know if USMLE 1 was P/F for 2023 med school grads. I was replying to someone who had a high score on USMLE 1 so I assume scores were still part of the application.
 
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Where did you get this ridiculous chart and why do you believe the numbers on it?
i get it. those numbers are about 10% of what sdn posters here get paid... but those numbers are in line with pretty much every survey out there.

but i got it from whitecoat investor
 
How are job outlooks affected for someone who graduates from a lower tier ( like HCA ) residency. I’d imagine if locks you out of academics but what does it look like for PP?!
we had a locum from one of the newer residencies in florida. im pretty sure it was hca. we let her go. the anesthesiologist could not function alone. all we needed for her is to take a room. we even gave her cataract room alone because she cant handle intubations alone ( teaching hospital. max 5 cataracts in 8 hours bc each one is like 90 mins long). even then she kept calling for help for stupid things

honestly dont know how she passed training
 
we had a locum from one of the newer residencies in florida. im pretty sure it was hca. we let her go. the anesthesiologist could not function alone. all we needed for her is to take a room. we even gave her cataract room alone because she cant handle intubations alone ( teaching hospital. max 5 cataracts in 8 hours bc each one is like 90 mins long). even then she kept calling for help for stupid things

honestly dont know how she passed training
Jesus this is horrible. 5 cataracts in 8 hours. Are you joking? She passed because those places don’t care about the quality. Just the money they make from the government.
And people like me can’t get a locums job.
 
we had a locum from one of the newer residencies in florida. im pretty sure it was hca. we let her go. the anesthesiologist could not function alone. all we needed for her is to take a room. we even gave her cataract room alone because she cant handle intubations alone ( teaching hospital. max 5 cataracts in 8 hours bc each one is like 90 mins long). even then she kept calling for help for stupid things

honestly dont know how she passed training

Damn that’s sad. We had an anesthesiologist like that at my old job. Could not handle general anesthesia cases or work alone. She also sucked at Ivs and struggled with mask ventilation. She was middle aged and not a recent grad. They put her in the cataract room 90 percent of the time and kept running into trouble. Ie oversedating a patient and having to reverse benzo.
 
we had a locum from one of the newer residencies in florida. im pretty sure it was hca. we let her go. the anesthesiologist could not function alone. all we needed for her is to take a room. we even gave her cataract room alone because she cant handle intubations alone ( teaching hospital. max 5 cataracts in 8 hours bc each one is like 90 mins long). even then she kept calling for help for stupid things

honestly dont know how she passed training


90min cataracts could be challenging, especially if there are communication issues. I’d be tempted to make things easy for myself and slip in an LMA.
 





Wow. Never thought I’d see that. I wonder what proportion of anesthesia applicants were dual applicants. Anesthesia has been a “backup” to more competitive specialties for dual applicants in the past.

There were only 7 unfilled spots and I’m sure they were gobbled up quickly.

There was only 1 program with 3 unfilled pgy-1 positions. 1606/1609 PGY1 positions filled.

All pgy-2 positions filled 301/301.

And 133/137 R positions filled.
 
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we had a locum from one of the newer residencies in florida. im pretty sure it was hca. we let her go. the anesthesiologist could not function alone. all we needed for her is to take a room. we even gave her cataract room alone because she cant handle intubations alone ( teaching hospital. max 5 cataracts in 8 hours bc each one is like 90 mins long). even then she kept calling for help for stupid things

honestly dont know how she passed training
Ive worked with several people approximating this level if dysfunction.

Eg. Guy in his 50’s periodically emergently intubated people in the MAC/topical cataract rooms due to respiratory arrests he induced through giving massive amounts of midazolam and fentanyl.
 
Wow. Never thought I’d see that. I wonder what proportion of anesthesia applicants were dual applicants. Anesthesia has been a “backup” to more competitive specialties for dual applicants in the past.

There were only 7 unfilled spots and I’m sure they were gobbled up quickly.

There was only 1 program with 3 unfilled pgy-1 positions. 1606/1609 PGY1 positions filled.

All pgy-2 positions filled 301/301.

And 133/137 R positions filled.
Daaaaaaamn son! Thank God when I applied for residencies all you had to do was be alive. My stats were mediocre at best and I wouldn't even match to a low tier program these days. Fortunately I work like an animal and everybody likes me. I'm rich, I'm fortunate, and I'm glad I'm not an anesthesiology resident today.
 
Ive worked with several people approximating this level if dysfunction.

Eg. Guy in his 50’s periodically emergently intubated people in the MAC/topical cataract rooms due to respiratory arrests he induced through giving massive amounts of midazolam and fentanyl.
My God it ain't rocket science. 1-2 mg of Versed, 25-50 mcg of fentanyl (maybe) and STFU. Next!
 
My God it ain't rocket science. 1-2 mg of Versed, 25-50 mcg of fentanyl (maybe) and STFU. Next!

Anesthesia is harder for some anesthesiologists than it is for others 🤷‍♂️
D24CF857-8C11-4B55-A1CE-5350E9F9A838.jpeg
 
If you are saying 69% match rate for US MDs by looking at USMD applicants and USMD matched, you are misinterpreting the data.

Many USMDs applying to ortho, ent, neurosx, etc. still apply to Anesthesiology as back-up, so those applicants count towards “USMD applicants” but when they match into their primary field, they wont count towards “USMD matched”.

Since it is hard to know exactly how many dual applicants applied this year, and NRMP wont release the data, the best # to look to gauge the competitiveness of our field is looking at the % of USMD.

We’ve been on a significant rise last few years, and it is 75% this year.
 
Spell out what the issue is again?
Yeah, def no chance that any woman applying to Stanford's gen surg, integrated vascular, or integrated plastics programs was a top quartile, AOA, step 250 crusher. Slam dunk case they took those spots away from more deserving white male.
 
Yeah, def no chance that any woman applying to Stanford's gen surg, integrated vascular, or integrated plastics programs was a top quartile, AOA, step 250 crusher. Slam dunk case they took those spots away from more deserving white male.
How about a really diverse class which includes White Males? Instead, Stanford clearly went out of their way to exclude White Males unless you think there were NO QUALIFIED White Male applicants to a top 10 General Surgery program. IMHO, Stanford was making a loud political statement with their Match and I don't think that's true "equity" for everyone.
 
Spell out what the issue is again?
It’s fairly obvious. You don’t understand.

These guys know the Supreme Court will overturn affirmative action in their June 2023 decision (it will likely be “leaked” in may 2023 like overturning abortion. It’s the biggest case in education to be decided on the docket for this year court session

The woke culture has already prepared for this with their dei initiative. And also tried to make it bulletproof by making standardized tests that provide objective data who a high scoring candidate is. By making usmle pass/fail

Next up they will make sat/act scores pass/fail. It’s a backend way to discriminate against high achievers who score high on tests. Like Asian males and many white males

The goal is to remove the more objective data (standardized testing) to level out the playing field.

How about an NFL combine where teams measure athletes speeds, hand size etc.
objective data is 40 yard speed. Imagine if a team drafting a wide receiver. The only data they received is the wide receiver was able to complete the 40 yard dash but no time speed was recorded. Just a pass/fail.

That’s how dei works.
 
How about a really diverse class which includes White Males? Instead, Stanford clearly went out of their way to exclude White Males unless you think there were NO QUALIFIED White Male applicants to a top 10 General Surgery program. IMHO, Stanford was making a loud political statement with their Match and I don't think that's true "equity" for everyone.
I think you're making a whole bunch of presumptions for which you have no evidence, and simultaneously ignoring the general population of people who are applying to California programs / want to live in California plus whatever criteria they might be using other than race to select their class.

Before you lost your mind shouting about CRT and DEI or whatever, this is still what UCSF's surgery class looked like 5 years ago. It's not like these California programs looked any different even before you thought they were bowing to whatever you think "woke" means nowadays

1679748465378.png
 
I’m not trying to say what’s right or wrong here as I’m still making up my mind on the whole issue. I think there is good with regard to DEI, but also bad. An example could easily be that it’s perfectly okay for Stanford to create a class of 13 females/1 male and no one says a peep. My guess is if they had a class of 13 males/1 female (especially a lot of white males) there’d be less of a warm reception.
 
I’m not trying to say what’s right or wrong here as I’m still making up my mind on the whole issue. I think there is good with regard to DEI, but also bad. An example could easily be that it’s perfectly okay for Stanford to create a class of 13 females/1 male and no one says a peep. My guess is if they had a class of 13 males/1 female (especially a lot of white males) there’d be less of a warm reception.
Just to be clear, that picture includes the categorical general surgery, integrated vascular, and integrated plastics matches. It doesn't necessarily change the point you're getting at, but it does mean there are three different program directors / section heads etc with whom you have to take issue.



e: also, with regard to what I was saying to blade about a degree of self selection, I believe Stanford rads matched all males and got ratio'ed on twitter so bad that they took the tweet of the matches down

1679752067039.png
 
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All this DEI will backfire because women particularly surgeons don’t stay in medicine full time that long. Creating an even bigger surgeon shortage.

These institutions do not think.

I know cause my ortho buddy hired one and has to work harder to make up from times his female surgeon wants off and unwilling to work extra even with more pay.
 
Did anyone see the Stanford DEI (diversity equity inclusivity ) 2023 general surgery matching class. Almost a joke what they did.



This is what blade is talking about when they mentioned the agenda of the woke culture.



UAB’s General Surgery Match

Did anyone see UAB’s DEI 2023 general surgery matching class? Almost a joke what they did.

I can’t believe 70% of them are women, and some of them are even minorities. They definitely took away some more deserving white male spots, and some of them will probably even want to have families during residency. The audacity.

Woke culture is ruining America, and it’s even caught on in the South. This must be stopped.
 
This is the perfect example to counter every argument in this thread. As you can see, anyone who is in favor of DEI has completely ignored it because there really is no argument to this data.
"Well, that looks really fair to asian and white applicants."

Alright, I'll bite. The problem here is that the total numbers of applicants aren't included in this graph. When you look at it from that perspective, you'll see that black and hispanic applicants are an almost insignificant portion of total applicants.

If you're an average asian or white applicant, your odds of "losing" a spot to another Asian or white applicant with lower scores than you are higher than "losing" it to a black person regardless of their score.

If you eliminated EVERY black applicant accepted to medical school and gave those seats to white applicants of any score, you increase a white applicants chances of acceptance by about 2% (47% chance to 49%).

The sky is not falling. Even the seemingly significant affirmative action programs your graph depicts have only a minute impact on white or asian acceptance.

The harm here to white or asian applicants is trivial.

 
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T
UAB’s General Surgery Match

Did anyone see UAB’s DEI 2023 general surgery matching class? Almost a joke what they did.

I can’t believe 70% of them are women, and some of them are even minorities. They definitely took away some more deserving white male spots, and some of them will probably even want to have families during residency. The audacity.

Woke culture is ruining America, and it’s even caught on in the South. This must be stopped.
The quality has gone down. Less training hours. Less qualified attending a entering the work force. They still (not all) have the skills to operate like residents entering work force 20-30 years ago.

Notice I said not all. But a lot of them.

Even my ortho male colleagues (and I work with a lot of them). The spatial orientation is different.

Look. Some do get better.

There was ortho woman doc I worked with yesterday. Even her senior male colleagues said it too her a couple of years to get into the groove.

Do practices nurish this? Do many have the capacity to be this patience?
Alright, I'll bite. The problem here is that the total numbers of applicants aren't included in this graph. When you look at it from that perspective, you'll see that black and hispanic applicants are an almost insignificant portion of total applicants.

If you're an average asian or white applicant, your odds of "losing" a spot to another Asian or white applicant with lower scores than you are higher than "losing" it to a black person regardless of their score.

If you eliminated EVERY black applicant accepted to medical school and gave those seats to white applicants of any score, you increase a white applicants chances of acceptance by about 2% (47% chance to 49%).

The sky is not falling. Even the seemingly significant affirmative action programs your graph depicts have only a minute impact on white or asian acceptance.

The harm here to white or asian applicants is trivial IMO.

you are moving the goal post homie!!

Do you want to play the percentage game? Or do you want to play the raw numbers game? Pick.

By your definition more white people are on food stamps. (Which is true)

But moving the field goal post. More black people/Hispanics are on food stamps as a percentage. So when liberals say cutting food stamps hurts more minorities. Are they lying? By your definition using raw numbers as percentage. More white people are hurt by cutting food stamps.
 
you are moving the goal post homie!!

Do you want to play the percentage game? Or do you want to play the raw numbers game? Pick.

You're not actually saying anything.

I was responding to a poster who said "Well, that looks really fair to asian and white applicants." He/she was arguing that AA hurts white and asian applicants, I'm arguing that the actual harm is trivial.

If you're going to argue a harm is occurring, you should try to look at how much of a harm is actually being done.

Edit: If you want to make the argument that cutting off food stamps wouldn't harm black people, or would be trivial, just PM me your work. Don't need to divert the thread that far.
 
You're not actually saying anything.

I was responding to a poster who said "Well, that looks really fair to asian and white applicants." He/she was arguing that AA hurts white and asian applicants, I'm arguing that the actual harm is trivial.

If you're going to argue a harm is occurring, you should try to look at how much of a harm is actually being done.

Edit: If you want to make the argument that cutting off food stamps wouldn't harm black people, or would be trivial, just PM me your work. Don't need to divert the thread that far.
The Progressive mind set can't be changed. The facts are clear that Residency programs now use the same metrics as Med Schools. This means being a White or Asian male will be viewed negatively. These med students are aware of the shift and are seeking out programs/specialties where DEI applicants don't apply or where there are ample spots. The competition for top programs are intense and the White/Asian Male needs to not only have better metrics but also be prepared to settle for lower ranked programs. This is the new norm. In the name of DEI, the White/Asian Male is expendable.
As a society, we will not be better off because of DEI in Medicine. What we need is to select the best individual regardless of race, gender or sexual orientation.


 
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The Progressive mind set can't be changed. The facts are clear that Residency programs now use the same metrics as Med Schools. This means being a White or Asian male will be viewed negatively. These med students are aware of the shift and are seeking out programs/specialties where DEI applicants don't apply or where there are ample spots. The competition for top programs are intense and the White/Asian Male needs to not only have better metrics but also be prepared to settle for lower ranked programs. This is the new norm. In the name of DEI, the White/Asian Male is expendable.

I hear you. Being a white or asian med student is viewed negatively... by about 1-2% depending on how you measure it. I'm saying the difference is trivial, you aren't even disputing that at this point. You're just butt hurt that such a discrepancy could actually be better for society. (See other thread where we discussed affirmative action more in depth.)

I'm saying there are good, population level, reasons for DEI and affirmative action; you're ignoring those.

 
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Damn that’s sad. We had an anesthesiologist like that at my old job. Could not handle general anesthesia cases or work alone. She also sucked at Ivs and struggled with mask ventilation. She was middle aged and not a recent grad. They put her in the cataract room 90 percent of the time and kept running into trouble. Ie oversedating a patient and having to reverse benzo.
How does the surgeon work on a cataract for 90 minutes though. Someone please help me. Teaching residents?
 
“Our motto is to advocate for a race-blind, meritocratic America,” Xu said. “Right now we’re using the example of medical schools to show people exactly why DEI ideology is so harmful because it’s something most people on the left, right or center can all agree. They don’t care what the race of their doctor is. They just want the best-qualified doctor.”


Last year, Stanley Goldfarb, 79, professor emeritus at the University of Pennsylvania’s medical school, told The Post that new “anti-racism” med school policies are lowering standards, reducing students to the color of their skin and corrupting medicine in general — much to the outrage of his fellow faculty members.

Xu said he tries to offer solutions in his work.

“What the anti-racist will never tell you is, why did they call themselves anti-racist? ‘Oh, well, because we oppose racism.’ I also oppose racism, but I want a merit-based, colorblind society,” he added.

“And these anti-racists, they don’t want a merit-based, colorblind society. They want a society of socialism. They want racial socialists, where race privileges will be doled out at a racially proportionate rate. That’s what they want, but it’s not what I or a lot of other Americans want.”
 

The guardians of science have turned on science itself.
 

The guardians of science have turned on science itself.

I know it probably isnt your intention, but this is how you're coming off with all these posts: "Allowing more black students into medicine is hurting the profession".

If someone has the occasional post questioning this or that DEI program, that's one thing. But the fixation you have on this issue gives off the impression that this is a personal crusade for you. You've made like a dozen posts on DEI across three or four separate threads at this point, and I'm getting tired of responding to them and waiting for you to actually try and respond to any of the points that seem persuasive to me.

It's like if I was talking to some guy and he kept bringing up age-of-consent laws all the time and knew what the age-of-consent was in each state, and had strong opinions on the difference between pedophilia and ephebophilia. It just raises an eyebrow and makes you say "Hey, why do you keep talking about pedophilia stuff all the time?"

I get the same impression from you, but about DEI.

Anyways, here's a hypothetical:
Suppose we have a population composed exclusively of two races of people A and B. Race A has greater longevity, less cancer, less heart attacks, and generally better healthcare outcomes all around when compared to Race B AND we discover that some of these differences can be attributed to problems with how we're delivering healthcare. Suppose further we have an evidence based option to address some of those disparities and improve the healthcare of Race B simply by getting more people of Race B into the healthcare system. There isn't evidence this will harm the healthcare recieved by Race A, but it will measurably decrease the proportion of Race A physicians to Race B physicians over time to a degree.

Would it be ethical to pursue the evidence based option at healthcare reform? Can you at least understand how some people might think it's ethical to think about population level health like this?
 
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"Well, that looks really fair to asian and white applicants."

Alright, I'll bite. The problem here is that the total numbers of applicants aren't included in this graph. When you look at it from that perspective, you'll see that black and hispanic applicants are an almost insignificant portion of total applicants.

If you're an average asian or white applicant, your odds of "losing" a spot to another Asian or white applicant with lower scores than you are higher than "losing" it to a black person regardless of their score.

If you eliminated EVERY black applicant accepted to medical school and gave those seats to white applicants of any score, you increase a white applicants chances of acceptance by about 2% (47% chance to 49%).

The sky is not falling. Even the seemingly significant affirmative action programs your graph depicts have only a minute impact on white or asian acceptance.

The harm here to white or asian applicants is trivial.


Why can’t we just choose the most qualified individuals regardless of race and sex? Don’t we want the best caring for our loved ones?
 
How about a really diverse class which includes White Males? Instead, Stanford clearly went out of their way to exclude White Males unless you think there were NO QUALIFIED White Male applicants to a top 10 General Surgery program. IMHO, Stanford was making a loud political statement with their Match and I don't think that's true "equity" for everyone.
Ding ding ding
 
Why can’t we just choose the most qualified individuals regardless of race and sex? Don’t we want the best caring for our loved ones?

Listen man, I've responded to Blade on like 3 different threads on this issue. But the short answer is there are population level effects that suggest affirmative action has significant benefits over the status quo. Addressing healthcare disparities is important.

As a counter point, I would suggest to you that the scores on a test don't reliably predict how good of a doctor you'll be for the United States.


 
Listen man, I've responded to Blade on like 3 different threads on this issue. But the short answer is there are population level effects that suggest affirmative action has significant benefits over the status quo. Addressing healthcare disparities is important.

As a counter point, I would suggest to you that the scores on a test don't reliably predict how good of a doctor you'll be for the United States.


Please expand what you mean by “affirmative has significant benefits over status quo” and addressing healthcare disparities is important”. I don’t understand.

Good scores predicts intelligence and work ethic. Two incredibly important factors a successful physician. I know the bottom feeders in my class went on to be below average healthcare progressional in the real world.
 
Please expand what you mean by “affirmative has significant benefits over status quo” and addressing healthcare disparities is important”. I don’t understand.

Good scores predicts intelligence and work ethic. Two incredibly important factors a successful physician. I know the bottom feeders in my class went on to be below average healthcare progressional in the real world.

I don't want to derail this thread further. See the link I included in a previous post to a better thread and my comments there where I elaborate. Comment there if you still want to discuss.

Alternatively, peruse this report and subsequent research on patient-physician racial concordance studies and studies on the practice preferences of minority physicians.

 
Seriously. Good step scores don't necessarily mean you'll be an all-star in surgery, and bad step scores don't mean you won't, but I DO know it takes a heck of a lot more drive and aptitude to get a good score than it does a bad one.

If I absolutely had to choose a surgeon based only on step score, which I think is a good proxy for aptitude, focus, and pure-grind mentality, I know which direction I would skew my choices.

I take issue with the statement "I would suggest to you that the scores on a test don't reliably predict how good of a doctor you'll be for the United States."

Would you say that test scores predict how intelligent someone is? If not, how the heck else would you determine this? Do you feel that the average, say, nursing student, could easily achieve competence in medicine, if test scores are not important?

You act as if people actually rank people 1-100 based on scores alone. I’m not saying that. It’s multi factorial. But what I am saying good grades, scores, and a history of doing so usually translates into to a good doc
 
I don't think they do that at all. But I would say that it does make a difference on some level, and that scores are very important to figure out whose application to weigh heavily and interview. To suggest that the minimum competence of merely passing Step 1 does enough to stratify the academic competence in a med school class is a travesty.

Whether the information on step 1 is USEFUL to you as a doctor is absolutely irrelevant. It functions as an aptitude test, and it's the best we've got to objectively determine who is a harder worker and more intelligent. It's not perfect, but it is certainly at least a decent measure

Just survey some medical students. Do you think anyone would ever say, "Oh, that person is a genius/savant/House like doctor god, and he ALSO barely passed his Step 1." Yikes.

Couldn’t agree more. It’s not so much the content than the overall aptitude to do well.
 
I don't think they do that at all. But I would say that it does make a difference on some level, and that scores are very important to figure out whose application to weigh heavily and interview. To suggest that the minimum competence of merely passing Step 1 does enough to stratify the academic competence in a med school class is a travesty.

Whether the information on step 1 is USEFUL to you as a doctor is absolutely irrelevant. It functions as an aptitude test, and it's the best we've got to objectively determine who is a harder worker and more intelligent. It's not perfect, but it is certainly at least a decent measure

Just survey some medical students. Do you think anyone would ever say, "Oh, that person is a genius/savant/House like doctor god, and he ALSO barely passed his Step 1." Yikes.

Couldn’t agree more. It’s not so much the content than the overall aptitude to do well.
I feel like the general tenor of your posts about the scores thing gives the impression you think all the URMs who match in a competitive specialty all barely passed step I and all the white guys who were getting passed over got 260s. Which is of course nonsense.

Are either of you guys in academics? I am, and just like a bunch of other programs (whether they admit or not), we have screening cutoffs for who gets an interview. That cutoff essentially says that this person, most likely, is not going to have a significant problem passing the basic and advanced. I have seen a gazillion med studs and residents who had 225s and a gazillion med studs and residents who had 250+s. There's no denying that scores, aptitude, and raw intelligence are important in anesthesia, both for taking tests and practicing, but anesthesiology (more so than many, many other specialties imo) requires characteristics that can't be measured on a standardized exam.

There are countless examples of step 260 residents who destroy the ITE every year, but who don't have any situational awareness or decision making capacity, and who just freeze like a deer in the headlights when faced with a circuit alarm or unexpected hypotension or a brady down on abdominal insufflation, etc. And then of course there are extremely arrogant step 260 residents who know how smart they are, and who think that means they don't have to take any criticism or suggestions from their attendings who've been doing this forever because they did a truelearn question on the topic of contention the night before.

Long story short, once a residency applicant meets a reasonable cutoff of test-taking ability / intelligence, the idea that anyone above that cutoff is getting excluded on "merit" becomes more and more nebulous.
 
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