MD & DO co'21 Residency Panic thread

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ready2go2 said:
I have 17 IM interview invites (not trying to brag just giving context) and I had my first interview this week and immediately after logging off I cancelled 2 interviews and I plan to cancel a few more scheduled in January at the end of this month. There is no freaking way I can survive doing 15+ interviews. Dare I say they are worse than normal interview days (comparing them to Med school interviews at least)?

Anywho my point is I think as “interview hoarding” people complete their first few interviews they will quickly realize that it’s not worth their time to interview at so many places (even with the travel cost savings) because once you hit above 10 the return on the time investment fades and the fatigue hits big.
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I did 16 in person interviews last year... it was terrible lol
 
ciestar said:
I did 16 in person interviews last year... it was terrible lol
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Kudos to you....How did you manage to schedule 16 interviews in person? I only have 17 so far scheduled...and I already waitlist and cancel some because of schedule conflict.
 
Neopolymath said:
DR apps seem to be all over the place. You have some pretty uncompetitive people on paper with a lot of interviews and I absolutely do not buy their letters are better, PS stronger or whatever else people say might be giving them the love. I'm happy for them of course but DR has been confusing as hell.
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Their numbers might be inflated by the tiny programs that take like 2/year. I didn’t apply to those. Nothing against them. I just didn’t like the location of most of them and didn’t want to end up in a situation where I’m the only resident in a class. But I applied pretty realistically overall.

Residents and fellows I know told me I’d get love from the few big name programs I’m interested in. But I’d love to just get some love from my local state program.

Talk about humbling.
 
mandu_cheeks said:
This might not be the most PC thing to admit, but it's possible that PDs are filtering for other demographic data in addition to AOA/step scores/geographic ties/etc. At one of the virtual open houses earlier this summer, a PD explicitly mentioned that they were planning on recruiting more students from URM groups. For example, women traditionally make up a third or a quarter of the applicant pool, but a program may decide to give half of all of their interview slots to women to match a more diverse class.

I'm just bringing this up because I've gotten DR/IR interviews at some uber-reach programs that I didn't expect, especially this early. I feel pretty good about my stats and my app overall, but you know, imposter syndrome and all that :shrug:
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I certainly wouldn't begrudge them of trying to diversify radiology. It needs improved, sure. The regional thing I don't buy as much. I did at first but now I'm questioning it. As I said, it's been strange.
 
Ho0v-man said:
Their numbers might be inflated by the tiny programs that take like 2/year. I didn’t apply to those. Nothing against them. I just didn’t like the location of most of them and didn’t want to end up in a situation where I’m the only resident in a class. But I applied pretty realistically overall.

Residents and fellows I know told me I’d get love from the few big name programs I’m interested in. But I’d love to just get some love from my local state program.

Talk about humbling.
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There is a low tier program in a state next door with zero reason to think my app wasn't sincere to their program or that I wouldn't live there/rank it... Radio silence. And then I get my goal program on first day it sent invites. It makes no sense.
 
frenchyn said:
Kudos to you....How did you manage to schedule 16 interviews in person? I only have 17 so far scheduled...and I already waitlist and cancel some because of schedule conflict.
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Keep in mind i had a longer timeline. I believe my first interview was like 10/1 or 10/2 and last one was close to the last week of January. It was exhausting and i had at least one three interview week in there.
 
Noemata said:
Given the holiday break, how far into December or early January do you guys think we can expect to interview? Has anyone had an interview scheduled between December 20 to say January 6?
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I have an EM interview Jan. 21st
 
I get doing a few more interviews this year than one would feel comfortable with normally. It's a weird year. I also understand doing a lot if you truly see yourself possibly going to all of them.

But hoarding when there are some that you definitely won't go to and have enough that you like? Seems kind of useless.

efle said:
Regional is HUGE in my opinion. All of my most competative IIs are either near where I went to med school, college, or grew up.
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My top 3 most competitive are in different corners of the country haha. I did get some good safety hits from regional though.
 
12jas said:
I have done 7 already and will hit 9 by the end of this week. I have already canceled a couple of invites because interviewing on zoom sucks. My one tomorrow is with 6 faculty and I am dreading it. The key to taking time off is to not tell your school you are taking time off. Instead, just ask whoever is supervising you. I don't plan on ever keeping my school in the loop with days missed.
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Yeah. Don't tell school squat. I agree.
 
OB/Gyn interview release day. I have interviews, but so does everyone else like me with similar stats. I really don't want to hoard interviews, but I am paranoid.
 
I don't think there is such a thing as "interview hoarding". PD's will interview who they want to interview. It's going to be a strange year and your only job as an MS4 is to make sure that you get the job that you want as a PGY-1. Would think twice about cancelling interviews because you're "tired" or "don't feel like it". There are worse things than having to sit through another interview or two. There's a lot of judgment getting passed to people on twitter for applying to more places or interviewing at more places, but this is probably the astute thing to do in a year like this. Nobody knows how its going to play out in the end.
 
Neopolymath said:
I certainly wouldn't begrudge them of trying to diversify radiology. It needs improved, sure. The regional thing I don't buy as much. I did at first but now I'm questioning it. As I said, it's been strange.
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Ya I think over 1/2 my II’s I don’t have regional connections to.

I think DR programs are looking at stats/home/Sub-I peeps first and then best fit (some may perceive this as regional connections)

Just a guess tho idfk
 
Matthew9Thirtyfive said:
Literally two hours ago I said to not post personal attacks or insults. One user has been warned and a post deleted. If your response to something is an insult, say it to yourself and then don’t post it.
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Or PM the user directly lol. Sometimes the user on the receiving end REALLY REALLY deserves it.
 
efle said:
Regional is HUGE in my opinion. All of my most competative IIs are either near where I went to med school, college, or grew up.
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We should start advising high schoolers going into pre-med to do college and med school in different areas of the country lol, Northeast, California and Southeast in some order should do it.
 
underthesun said:
I don't think there is such a thing as "interview hoarding". PD's will interview who they want to interview. It's going to be a strange year and your only job as an MS4 is to make sure that you get the job that you want as a PGY-1. Would think twice about cancelling interviews because you're "tired" or "don't feel like it". There are worse things than having to sit through another interview or two. There's a lot of judgment getting passed to people on twitter for applying to more places or interviewing at more places, but this is probably the astute thing to do in a year like this. Nobody knows how its going to play out in the end.
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I agree w you. People name and shame those who got a lot of interview...but not matching is the worst thing that can happen. I have classmate who did not match, became depressed and miserable. Even if you re apply and dual apply to some lower speciality, the # of interviews that you will get decrease exponentially. I did not know that until now. You never know if you will match for sure even if you go to a lot of interviews, but I definitely will not want to take chance because some people will hate me...I am hoarding interviews because guess what? They may be the ones who match and I don’t...n will they be around to support and comfort me? Nope!!! Even worse, is if you cancel interviews, go unmatched and end up living the rest of your life wondering what if you went to those interview...I also saw this happened before...unfortunately
There are two sides of this with no perfect solution...but not matching is a terrible thing to happen. The person who gets a lot of interview no doubt work harder than the one who don’t. You can’t say the top people put in the same amount of work than the lower people. It would be nice if the people who have a lot of interview cancel them if they reach certain number...but you can not hate and be pissed of if they don’t. It is life unfortunately...I don’t live my life hating the top people at my school or people at Stanford because they work for their scores and resume.
 
frenchyn said:
I agree w you. People name and shame those who got a lot of interview...but not matching is the worst thing that can happen. I have classmate who did not match, became depressed and miserable. Even if you re apply and dual apply to some lower speciality, the # of interviews that you will get decrease exponentially. I did not know that until now. You never know if you will match for sure even if you go to a lot of interviews, but I definitely will not want to take chance because some people will hate me...I am hoarding interviews because guess what? They may be the ones who match and I don’t...n will they be around to support and comfort me? Nope!!! Even worse, is if you cancel interviews, go unmatched and end up living the rest of your life wondering what if you went to those interview...I also saw this happened before...unfortunately
There are two sides of this with no perfect solution...but not matching is a terrible thing to happen. The person who gets a lot of interview no doubt work harder than the one who don’t. You can’t say the top people put in the same amount of work than the lower people. It would be nice if the people who have a lot of interview cancel them if they reach certain number...but you can not hate and be pissed of if they don’t. It is life unfortunately...I don’t live my life hating the top people at my school or people at Stanford because they work for their scores and resume.
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Gross. Just super gross. Glad to know I’m a “lower person” and “didn’t work hard” because I don’t have 20+ interviews. I worked my @$$ off. And I’m definitely a worthwhile person. Maybe things come easier to some.
 
I'm with you guys with regards to wanting to be secure in a tumultuous year and going on more interviews, but why is there an assumption that its based on hard work? Super presumptuous, especially when luck/field/amount of applications can play a huge role.
 
frenchyn said:
I agree w you. People name and shame those who got a lot of interview...but not matching is the worst thing that can happen. I have classmate who did not match, became depressed and miserable. Even if you re apply and dual apply to some lower speciality, the # of interviews that you will get decrease exponentially. I did not know that until now. You never know if you will match for sure even if you go to a lot of interviews, but I definitely will not want to take chance because some people will hate me...I am hoarding interviews because guess what? They may be the ones who match and I don’t...n will they be around to support and comfort me? Nope!!! Even worse, is if you cancel interviews, go unmatched and end up living the rest of your life wondering what if you went to those interview...I also saw this happened before...unfortunately
There are two sides of this with no perfect solution...but not matching is a terrible thing to happen. The person who gets a lot of interview no doubt work harder than the one who don’t. You can’t say the top people put in the same amount of work than the lower people. It would be nice if the people who have a lot of interview cancel them if they reach certain number...but you can not hate and be pissed of if they don’t. It is life unfortunately...I don’t live my life hating the top people at my school or people at Stanford because they work for their scores and resume.
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The idea that you must work harder if you have more interviews is just so...wrong.
 
frenchyn said:
There are two sides of this with no perfect solution...but not matching is a terrible thing to happen. The person who gets a lot of interview no doubt work harder than the one who don’t. You can’t say the top people put in the same amount of work than the lower people. It would be nice if the people who have a lot of interview cancel them if they reach certain number...but you can not hate and be pissed of if they don’t. It is life unfortunately...I don’t live my life hating the top people at my school or people at Stanford because they work for their scores and resume.
Click to expand...

Good god this isn’t true. Check yourself and your privilege. So many things go into getting interviews and assuming someone didn’t work as hard because they haven’t gotten as many is incredibly naive and, quite frankly, a horrible way to think about other people/future doctors.
 
frenchyn said:
I agree w you. People name and shame those who got a lot of interview...but not matching is the worst thing that can happen. I have classmate who did not match, became depressed and miserable. Even if you re apply and dual apply to some lower speciality, the # of interviews that you will get decrease exponentially. I did not know that until now. You never know if you will match for sure even if you go to a lot of interviews, but I definitely will not want to take chance because some people will hate me...I am hoarding interviews because guess what? They may be the ones who match and I don’t...n will they be around to support and comfort me? Nope!!! Even worse, is if you cancel interviews, go unmatched and end up living the rest of your life wondering what if you went to those interview...I also saw this happened before...unfortunately
There are two sides of this with no perfect solution...but not matching is a terrible thing to happen. The person who gets a lot of interview no doubt work harder than the one who don’t. You can’t say the top people put in the same amount of work than the lower people. It would be nice if the people who have a lot of interview cancel them if they reach certain number...but you can not hate and be pissed of if they don’t. It is life unfortunately...I don’t live my life hating the top people at my school or people at Stanford because they work for their scores and resume.
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How can you measure how hard someone worked when you have spent literally zero time in their shoes? Also, how do you know that the people with more interviews are the ones that have the highest stats aka "WoRkEd HaRdEr"? There is no one formula for getting lots of interviews. I know people super low stats with lots of interviews and people with incredible stats with very few interviews as well. It happens get over yourselves guys.
 
frenchyn said:
I agree w you. People name and shame those who got a lot of interview...but not matching is the worst thing that can happen. I have classmate who did not match, became depressed and miserable. Even if you re apply and dual apply to some lower speciality, the # of interviews that you will get decrease exponentially. I did not know that until now. You never know if you will match for sure even if you go to a lot of interviews, but I definitely will not want to take chance because some people will hate me...I am hoarding interviews because guess what? They may be the ones who match and I don’t...n will they be around to support and comfort me? Nope!!! Even worse, is if you cancel interviews, go unmatched and end up living the rest of your life wondering what if you went to those interview...I also saw this happened before...unfortunately
There are two sides of this with no perfect solution...but not matching is a terrible thing to happen. The person who gets a lot of interview no doubt work harder than the one who don’t. You can’t say the top people put in the same amount of work than the lower people. It would be nice if the people who have a lot of interview cancel them if they reach certain number...but you can not hate and be pissed of if they don’t. It is life unfortunately...I don’t live my life hating the top people at my school or people at Stanford because they work for their scores and resume.
Click to expand...
I’m making my decisions based on the worst case scenario....be careful when asserting that people with more IIs work harder on average. We’re in an echo chamber of participation trophy kids who can’t handle being told they aren’t the absolute best. They say things like “we all worked hard” even though there are huge differences in work ethic and productivity among medical students. This kind of crap is meant to equalize us as applicants, but there are always people better than you and worse than you.
 
frenchyn said:
There are two sides of this with no perfect solution...but not matching is a terrible thing to happen. The person who gets a lot of interview no doubt work harder than the one who don’t. You can’t say the top people put in the same amount of work than the lower people. It would be nice if the people who have a lot of interview cancel them if they reach certain number...but you can not hate and be pissed of if they don’t. It is life unfortunately...I don’t live my life hating the top people at my school or people at Stanford because they work for their scores and resume.
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I am what you call... a "lower person". I have 20+ interviews. I can say I did not work as hard as some of my classmates. I dont know how you can be so wrong. Good luck on your interviews. And like I told you before, I'm sure PDs will see your humble and open attitude.
 
banana_phone said:
Good god this isn’t true. Check yourself and your privilege. So many things go into getting interviews and assuming someone didn’t work as hard because they haven’t gotten as many is incredibly naive and, quite frankly, a horrible way to think about other people/future doctors.
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I did not say you all did not work hard lol...I don't rank top of my class...and I don't just sit here and say hateful things to the people who do and have a lot of interviews. I respect them. They for sure work harder than me. At least for the top person in my class. She had one of the most disciplined and studied her butt off to be top...

I don't know if you ever do research on the top people...I do. Their resumes are mind blowing. They work harder to get those "more interviews"...I am jealous but at the same time, I have a lot of respect for all those people. I am not saying it is right to hoard interviews. But if they work for it...they deserve it...I respect them...
 
frenchyn said:
I did not say you all did not work hard lol...I don't rank top of my class...and I don't just sit here and say hateful things to the people who do and have a lot of interviews. I respect them. They for sure work harder than me. At least for the top person in my class. She had one of the most disciplined and studied her butt off to be top...

I don't know if you ever do research on the top people...I do. Their resumes are mind blowing. They work harder to get those "more interviews"...I am jealous but at the same time, I have a lot of respect for all those people. I am not saying it is right to hoard interviews. But if they work for it...they deserve it...I respect them...
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You, again, have no idea what youre talking about.
 
Dang the entitlement in some of these posts...
My anecdote is from last year so less relevant..

But, i had an application that screamed FM. My step 1 was garbage... it was a 211 and i will be the first to admit i didnt work nearly hard enough first or second year. I got 32 interviews. It isn’t all about “working hard”. Hell, “working hard” is subjective.

How about we stop this elitist nonsense and just hear each other out? We’re in a panic thread with people who have single digit interview numbers... be sympathetic before saying they’d have more if they had worked harder.

Geez.
 
banana_phone said:
Good god this isn’t true. Check yourself and your privilege. So many things go into getting interviews and assuming someone didn’t work as hard because they haven’t gotten as many is incredibly naive and, quite frankly, a horrible way to think about other people/future doctors.
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Are you telling me those scores higher on steps and more research don't work harder? We all work hard...I have no doubt...I would not go to the extend saying I work as hard as the people who score top of my class. They definitely work harder than me to get there
 
underthesun said:
I’m making my decisions based on the worst case scenario....be careful when asserting that people with more IIs work harder on average. We’re in an echo chamber of participation trophy kids who can’t handle being told they aren’t the absolute best. They say things like “we all worked hard” even though there are huge differences in work ethic and productivity among medical students. This kind of crap is meant to equalize us as applicants, but there are always people better than you and worse than you.
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I’m not a “participation trophy kid”, I’m in my mid 30s. And I’ve certainly never heard of SDN being an echo chamber of “lesser people”.

I have zero problem saying I’m not the smartest in my class. Or “best”. But you will not insult my work ethic.
 
frenchyn said:
Are you telling me those scores higher on steps and more research don't work harder? We all work hard...I have no doubt...I would not go to the extend saying I work as hard as the people who score top of my class. They definitely work harder than me to get there
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We all work hard. Some people just have the mental ability to get over the hump. Hard work does not equate interviews. I have 15 and I'm SUPER average, and I honestly didn't work as hard as half the people in my class
 
Chibucks15 said:
We all work hard. Some people just have the mental ability to get over the hump. Hard work does not equate interviews. I have 15 and I'm SUPER average, and I honestly didn't work as hard as half the people in my class
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Are you telling me the people who get higher scores and research don't get more interviews especially at the top programs? Again I am not saying you all don't work hard...but you have to admit some people in your class rank top because they work harder...Those people usually match better at top specialties or programs. This is a tough year. Everyone are scared. I just don't feel like it is right to judge people because they hoard interviews. That is my 2 cents.

I think it is better to respect each other and try to see things from different sides. At the end....good luck to everyone and hope we all match.
 
ciestar said:
Dang the entitlement in some of these posts...
My anecdote is from last year so less relevant..

But, i had an application that screamed FM. My step 1 was garbage... it was a 211 and i will be the first to admit i didnt work nearly hard enough first or second year. I got 32 interviews. It isn’t all about “working hard”. Hell, “working hard” is subjective.

How about we stop this elitist nonsense and just hear each other out? We’re in a panic thread with people who have single digit interview numbers... be sympathetic before saying they’d have more if they had worked harder.

Geez.
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Yeah we’ve beat this horse long enough so I’m not going to point out the obvious points here.
 
frenchyn said:
Are you telling me the people who get higher scores and research don't get more interviews especially at the top programs? Again I am not saying you all don't work hard...but you have to admit some people in your class rank top because they work harder...Those people usually match better at top specialties or programs. This is a tough year. Everyone are scared. I just don't feel like it is right to judge people because they hoard interviews. That is my 2 cents.

I think it is better to respect each other and try to see things from different sides. At the end....good luck to everyone and hope we all match.
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You're absolutely absurd and have zero idea what you're talking about.
 
frenchyn said:
Are you telling me the people who get higher scores and research don't get more interviews especially at the top programs? Again I am not saying you all don't work hard...but you have to admit some people in your class rank top because they work harder...Those people usually match better at top specialties or programs. This is a tough year. Everyone are scared. I just don't feel like it is right to judge people because they hoard interviews. That is my 2 cents.

I think it is better to respect each other and try to see things from different sides. At the end....good luck to everyone and hope we all match.
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"I think it is better to respect each other while I also say that you peasants are lower people because you don't have as many interviews as me, the most righteous and magnificent applicant that I am...and at the end...good luck to everyone, including you lower people and i hope we will all match"

This thread is helpful to many of us and is a tradition on SDN. Stop ruining it. You and @underthesun are being silly. There's nothing wrong with saying that you disagree with people passing on interview invites and you think people should in fact hoard interviews. That's a fair opinion to have. But when you start bashing other applicants, that's obnoxious.


Lawpy said:
Do you guys think the residency process can be improved by:

1. Banning all PD "you'll be ranked #1" or "stop interviewing elsewhere" and other false hope communication

2. Setting and enforcing application caps?
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#2 for sure. Application caps would be so much better for everyone. The programs for sure, because they won't be drowning in a sea of applications to review. And the applicants because it'll force them to really do their research on programs and apply much more strategically, rather than some shotgun approach. I think it's also fair to think that with app caps, programs will be less reliant on filters like Step 1 >260 or whatever.
 
bigindian4891 said:
I think ENT token system is the way to do it.
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I would love this!

(Correct me if I’m wrong people)

For anybody who doesn’t know, ENT applicants can mark the apps of the places they are most excited to apply to or something along those lines. And they are limited to doing it to a certain amount of apps. I think this would really help in years like this one.
 
Ho0v-man said:
Sitting at 8 DR interviews rn. Grateful for what I got but honestly thought I’d be doing a little better.
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This is good to hear (with regard to me being in the same boat). Waiting for the "trickle" or the "second wave" is anxiety provoking and it is uncertain if it will even occur. By all accounts, I too should be doing much better in DR than I currently am.
Best of luck. Hang in there.
 
Espressso said:
"I think it is better to respect each other while I also say that you peasants are lower people because you don't have as many interviews as me, the most righteous and magnificent applicant that I am...and at the end...good luck to everyone, including you lower people and i hope we will all match"

This thread is helpful to many of us and is a tradition on SDN. Stop ruining it. You and @underthesun are being silly. There's nothing wrong with saying that you disagree with people passing on interview invites and you think people should in fact hoard interviews. That's a fair opinion to have. But when you start bashing other applicants, that's obnoxious.




#2 for sure. Application caps would be so much better for everyone. The programs for sure, because they won't be drowning in a sea of applications to review. And the applicants because it'll force them to really do their research on programs and apply much more strategically, rather than some shotgun approach. I think it's also fair to think that with app caps, programs will be less reliant on filters like Step 1 >260 or whatever.
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What inclusive, equity-driven language should we be using to describe applicants with lower stats? Perhaps “numerically disadvantaged individuals”? Neither one of us have inferred that those with low stats are somehow lower as human beings. He did use that language at first but I think it was a product of a language barrier which is obvious by reading his posts. There are people that are lower and higher in terms of competitiveness. I don’t think that’s an offensive observation.
 
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