Anesthesia match/scramble

This forum made possible through the generous support of SDN members, donors, and sponsors. Thank you.

dbiddy

Member
7+ Year Member
15+ Year Member
20+ Year Member
Joined
Jan 15, 2002
Messages
54
Reaction score
0
I am wondering what people out there think about the match/scramble this year. I am a caribbean grad who applied for radiology and only got three interviews. At the last minute I applied for a few categorical internal med spots for back up. I'm wondering if I'd rather scramble into anesthesiology if I don't match into rads rather than do internal medicine.

That brings me to my question..........do you guys think that there will be as many quality spots available in the scramble this year compared to previous years. Location is very important to me and in the past there have been spots in nice places to live; such as florida, chicago, boston, nyc. I want to avoid the midwest and south (yes I know florida is in the south, but its not as bad as the rest).

Thanks.

Members don't see this ad.
 
Anesthesia applications from US grads are way up this year. I have been hearing on the order of 1.5-2x last years numbers through fellow students who are applying to anesthesia this year. I'm sure the top half of all anesthesia programs will fill this year. There may be some programs open in or near those cities. However, you will have to deal with what's left: Mostly malignant, longer hours, less teaching, less case variety, worse pay and location. Why not try to wing out a last minute application after calling programs personally. You never know when you will get a break.
 
Yeah, i would apply but I live in Hawaii and am out of money for travelling. I finished my last rotation in November and have not been able to find any medicine-related work and am considering working as an office temp........that's how broke I am!

Too bad they won't do teleconference interviews.
 
Members don't see this ad :)
Can you take out a loan from your family or med school or banks? The amount is peanuts (in the long run) compared to 3 painful years in a malignant anesthesia program.
 
I'm sure you're right, but I'm kind of burnt-out right now. Its a big hassle and very expensive travelling all the way from Hawaii. I have been to the mainland 4 times already. I'll probably just pray for rads, and hope for the best if I don't get in.
 
i'm finishing up interviewing and from the information i can gather scrambling into a spot this year is going be tough. if i were you i would start calling pd's and explaining your situation, that way even if you are forced to scramble you may have a leg up because at least you've already made contact with the pd and know him or her at some level. I think part of the problem on top of the increased number of applicants, this year is going to be the tough match in radiology and some of the other very competitive fields. Alot of these guys have as their backup anaesthesia as opposed to the traditional im, fp type of thing in the past. And the way radiology is looking this year alot of these guys are going to end up in anaesthesia, making it even tougher to secure a spot than would be indicated by the simple increase in applications.
 
I thought about applying to both Anesthesia and Radiology, but didn't want to have to BS everyone during interviews when I knew that Anesthesia would be my second choice. I'll probably call some of the programs that traditionally don't fill and ask them about ranking me at the end of their list, or about scrambling.

Mahalo.
 
I agree with the above posts. It would be near impossible to get an anesth. program in the postmatch.

I looked at the match stats for last yr. for ur interest: For PGY1 there were 40 spots unfilled in anesth and for CA1 there was only 90 spots unfilled.

Considering it is probably about 1.5-2 times more comp. this yr. I would say it would be VERY hard to get a spot at either a prime location or good program outside the match.

Also, I know for a fact that some of the powerhouse programs that go unfilled is not because they can't fill, but because they don't want to so they can take some really good appl. later on who are transfering from other fields.

Hope this helps.
 
Top