INFORMATION CONCERNING THE PERCEIVED COMPETITIVENESS OF ANESTHESIOLOGY
There is continuing debate as to just how "competitive" the field of Anesthesiology is, from the perspective of the applicant vying for a residency spot. Clearly, some people would argue that it is pretty easy to get a spot, especially at the lower tier programs. Others may say this is true as well, but would stipulate that at the "top tier" programs it is just as difficult to get a position as it is in any other competitive residency. While there may be no definitive way to gauge this based on the available data, there is data provided by the NRMP that shows the Match rate and the number of ranks for each position by candidates.
Taking the data (extracted from
these tables) over the past five match cycles, one can come up with the overall % of spots filled in through the Match and compare year-by-year:
TOTAL SPOTS OFFERED (PGY-1 & PGY-2 SPOTS)
Year------Spots---%Filled U.S.-- % Independent --Total Filled %
2001 ---- 1,104 ----- 64.6% --------- 23.5% ---------- 88.1%
2002 ---- 1,169 ----- 77.3% --------- 17.9% ---------- 95.2%
2003 ---- 1,264 ----- 73.3% --------- 22.5% ---------- 95.8%
2004 ---- 1,289 ----- 69.6% --------- 23.5% ---------- 93.1%
2005 ---- 1,283 ----- 71.4% --------- 24.5% ----------
95.9%
This leads to some fairly self-evident and non-controversial conclusions:
- Total number of spots have increased. Between 2001 and 2005, there were at total of 179 additional spots offered through the Match. However, six (6) total spots were lost in the past year (26 Advanced track spots were lost, but 20 Categorical track spots were added in 2005). This may reflect the fact that, by 2008, each and every program will have to offer at least one 4-year (Categorical) spot.
- The overall fill rate for 2005 was the highest in the past five match cycles. If you look at the percentage of spots filled for all combined spots, the fill rate this year was 95.9%, with the second closest in 2003, when there were also 19 fewer spots offered in the Match.
- Overall, the percentage of U.S. seniors taking spots versus the percentage of Independent applicants taking spots is consistent. The range of Independent applicants, except for 2002 when there seemed to be a "higher-than-normal" number of U.S. seniors choosing the field, has stayed fairly consistent between 22.5 - 24.5% of positions matched. It appears that the more U.S. seniors choose anesthesia, the more it affects the number of spots available to Independent applicants entering the field.
- Anesthesiology seems to be consistent over the past four (4) years in terms of overall fill rates via the NRMP.
The data reflecting "U.S. seniors" only includes graduating seniors in "allopathic", M.D.-granting schools in the United States. IMGs and DO students (among others including non-seniors and Canadian students) are, for the sake of the match, considered "independent applicants." (
see definitions here) Therefore, all other applicants including DO students are lumped into the "Independent" data, not just IMGs.
There may not be a way to know the total number of
applicants for the available positions. To look at the "number of applicants", one may have to correlate and cross-reference the ERAS data by looking at how many people applied to programs, how many were offered interviews, how many turned-down interviews, etc., etc. Despite the fact that no one is likely capturing that data, it would still probably become a Herculean task to compile such data that may not provide much really meaningful answers in the end anyway.
However, one can look at the "ranks/position ratio" possibly as a gauge of competitiveness. In the 2005 Match, on average there were
9.9 ranks/position (PGY-1) and
9.3 ranks/position (PGY-2) for each Anesthesiology spot offered in the Match. This seems to indicate that a lot of candidates went on a lot of interviews and ranked a lot of programs to get their matches. If we had this same data to compare for the past five cycles, it may be more meaningful in terms of perceived "competitiveness".
But, to further the point at hand, the only other
non-preliminary fields in the 2005 Match with a large number of total available positions that had higher "ranks/position ratios" than Anesthesiology this year were:
- Dermatology
- Combined Med-Derm
- Categorical Surgery
- Orthopedic Surgery
- Plastic Surgery
- Radiation Oncology
- Diagnostic Radiology
Therefore, the ranks/position ratio might be an overall pretty good "quick and dirty" way to judge the perceived competitiveness of a field by the applicants trying to enter that field, and it puts Anesthesiology in a fairly elite group. For what it's worth, Emergency Medicine (another perceived "highly competitive field") was right behind Anesthesiology at 9.5 ranks/position for PGY-1 spots and 8.9 ranks/position for PGY-2 spots, but they also had a higher number of spots available across the board (1,476 for EM vs. 1,283 for Anesthesiology, or about 15% more
total, PGY-1 & PGY-2, spots available in the Match).
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