Being unmatched...what's the risk with the upcoming merger (For DOs especially)?

[Alakazam123]

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I talked to the pre-health advisor at my school of late, and wanted to run something by you guys. She told me, that in the past few years, the number of medical schools opening far outnumbers the number of residency programs available. As can be inferred, things have gotten more competitive.

In the past, some people have come onto here and talked about going un-matched into any residency program. I was wondering, how bad will things be with the upcoming merger? Especially for DOs?

Is it still the case that a hard-working, and moderately high-performing student has nothing to worry about, or have things gotten considerably worse? The other reason I ask, is that the following thread worried me a little: 925 DO grads unmatched this year. Stop school expansion?

 

[Alakazam123]

And are there common attributes that are found in those who go unmatched? (lack of foresight, planning, etc.)

 

[stickgirl390]

Following

 

[ciestar]

And are there common attributes that are found in those who go unmatched? (lack of foresight, planning, etc.)

Yes, those. Overestimating your competitiveness for things and with no backup.

 

[993444]

Yes, those. Overestimating your competitiveness for things and with no backup.

MD students fall victim to that too.

 

[ciestar]

MD students fall victim to that too.

Didn’t say they didn’t.

 

[Alakazam123]

With regards to what was mentioned in that thread (925 DO grads unmatched this year. Stop school expansion?), how serious do you anticipate the problem to be for DOs going forward? Will even IM/FM/Psych become a tough match for them?

 

[ciestar]

With regards to what was mentioned in that thread (925 DO grads unmatched this year. Stop school expansion?), how serious do you anticipate the problem to be for DOs going forward? Will even IM/FM/Psych become a tough match for them?

Plenty of residency spots go unfilled every year.

FM/IM are easily attainable for a US student. Psych has become competitive over the past few years, so you have to work for it but it isn’t impossible.

Additionally, it is hard to say what effect the merger will have since we haven’t had a match post-merger yet.

 

[Alakazam123]

Plenty of residency spots go unfilled every year.

FM/IM are easily attainable for a US student. Psych has become competitive over the past few years, so you have to work for it but it isn’t impossible.

Additionally, it is hard to say what effect the merger will have since we haven’t had a match post-merger yet.

Would you say that the thread was a bit on the "sensational" side of things? Because 925 DOs going unmatched is roughly about 15% of the graduating class of all DO students. With MDs I believe 94% were able to match into a specialty, and the numbers have stayed quite high.

 

[Alakazam123]

Plenty of residency spots go unfilled every year.

FM/IM are easily attainable for a US student. Psych has become competitive over the past few years, so you have to work for it but it isn’t impossible.

Additionally, it is hard to say what effect the merger will have since we haven’t had a match post-merger yet.

Also are you referring to MD or DOs?

 

[Faha]

In recent years there have been approximately 3,000 US IMG and 4,000 foreign IMG that have matched into US residency programs. They will gradually be replaced by all the graduates from the new MD and DO schools that have opened or will open in the next few years. The number of residency positions increases every year and 10 years from now the number of MD and DO graduates will still be less than the number of available residency positions.

 

[Alakazam123]

In recent years there have been approximately 3,000 US IMG and 4,000 foreign IMG that have matched into US residency programs. They will gradually be replaced by all the graduates from the new MD and DO schools that have opened or will open in the next few years. The number of residency positions increases every year and 10 years from now the number of MD and DO graduates will still be less than the number of available residency positions.

Dang, my pre-health advisor was not accurate I suppose...

 

[ciestar]

Dang, my pre-health advisor was not accurate I suppose...

They’re usually not.

 

[ciestar]

Also are you referring to MD or DOs?

Both.

 

[Alakazam123]

So what was that whole previous thread about. Was it sorta blown out of proportion? Because 925 DOs going unmatched is a lot...

 

[deleted967981]

So what was that whole previous thread about. Was it sorta blown out of proportion? Because 925 DOs going unmatched is a lot...

That post was about the sky falling for future DO students if COCA doesn’t stop allowing new DO schools to open every year without subsequent expansion of residency positions.

Expansion of residency positions past what the free market can sustain would create a saturated system, similar to what is happening with pharmacy and law. Then compensation goes down and suddenly, it’s not nearly as economically sound to become a doctor anymore.

Now, none of this is happening right now, but it could in the decades to come. Some SDN posts are like watching the news all the time. You’ll begin to think the world is coming to an end at noon tomorrow if you don’t take everything with a grain of salt and do your own research.

 

[Goro]

Dang, my pre-health advisor was not accurate I suppose...

I have several billion data points that this is the case

 

[Alakazam123]

That post was about the sky falling for future DO students if COCA doesn’t stop allowing new DO schools to open every year without subsequent expansion of residency positions.

Expansion of residency positions past what the free market can sustain would create a saturated system, similar to what is happening with pharmacy and law. Then compensation goes down and suddenly, it’s not nearly as economically sound to become a doctor anymore.

Now, none of this is happening right now, but it could in the decades to come. Some SDN posts are like watching the news all the time. You’ll begin to think the world is coming to an end at noon tomorrow if you don’t take everything with a grain of salt and do your own research.

Good to know that the usual strategy of performing well, will still help one out.

 

[Moko]

US MD/DOs will be fine for the foreseeable future. In contrast, IMGs (including Caribbean grads) will likely have a harder time.

 

[Alakazam123]

Excuse this upcoming rant but what bothers more than ill-informed, often wholly ignorant advisors are the supposed best and brightest students, those premeds, many of which have research experience and certainly should be able to use Google, cant spend the few minutes and find the actual data

Summary
Data reported by the COMs show that 98.48% of spring 2019 graduates seeking GME successfully placed in graduate medical education (as of April 1, 2019). (There may be additional placements however the number of remaining GME positions is limited.)

while the total number of medical school seats across both DO and MD has grown over 30% in the past decade, the number of residency slots has grown to expand to handle this from about 18,400 MD/DO PGY-1/Pipeline residents in 2008-2009 to 24,200 in 2017-2018 with FMG remaining flat at about 7000 per year (see bottom chart)

View attachment 270453

Wow, that's certainly way different than my advisor's claim that the number of residency spots haven't changed since 1996. Thank you!!

 

[Goro]

Wow, that's certainly way different than my advisor's claim that the number of residency spots haven't changed since 1996. Thank you!!

Several billion + one.
Get some NRMP data and complain to whoever is the head of pre-med advising.