advice for residency

[IMGforNeuro]

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Dear friends,
i am a new member.
I would highly appreciate if you could advice me regarding my situation.
i am a foreign med grad ( graduated in 2000) and have cleared usmle step 1 with scores > 90 and step 2 85 with ecfmg certification.
I have employment authorization (EAD) and will acquire green card very soon , so i do not need visa.
I have work experience in neuro in my own country including some residency experience in neurosurgery.
I have US experience in neurology including research experience , one publication and also one US letter of recommendation in neuro and 2 neuro recos from my country.
The problem is that i received ecfmg certificate very late so i could not apply through sfmatch. I have applied for categorical internal med.
Is it possible for me to switch over to neurology after pgy1 in categorical int med ? If so how?
I would greatly appreciate your suggestions.

 

[panch]

hello,

after each year's sfmatch for Adult Neurology there are still around 20 spots open to start July of the following year. These spots are supposed to be frozen and held for the following year's match to start the july of that year. Also, there are probably 6-12 people that have matched for neurology that decide during their prelim/transitional year (or even during their neurology residency) that decide that they want to do something else.

So you can easily match/pre-match (remeber that this is the last year that you can prematch) this academic year into a categorical Int Medicine program for the coming academic year. i would aim at a place that has its own neurology program (maybe even one that historically hasn't filled/has open spots) or that is an affiliated institution of a teaching hospital w/ a neuro program.
[personnaly i would frown upon it, i think that if you know you're gonna go neurology then you should be applying prelim. it's not fair to leave a program and your fellow classmates high and dry with one less PGY-2 than expected. but i can understand where you are coming from and that if neuro doesn't work out at least you'll have a secure spot for training]

Places don't fill and/or have open spots for many different reasons, often it is location that can cause an very good neuro program to not fill. remember that you'll get avery good training at most places.

good luck,

-p

 

[IMGforNeuro]

Thanks very much