Concerns over Pitt MSTP Match Results

[McDover]

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Hi Everyone!

I am posting from a throwaway account to protect identity. Anyways, I recently looked at Pitt's match results for the past few years. While good, they are no where near as impressive as those from similarly ranked peer institutions. What do you guys think of their match results?

Also, should I be concerned with the abundance of residency matches to the home institution (especially if I want to eventually match into top programs in either coast)?

Pitt's match lists from 2014 to 2018: mdphd.pitt.edu/residency-match

Thanks!

 

[eteshoe]

score well on step 1/2, do well on your clinical rotations, and be decently productive during your phd and it won't matter.

 

[Fencer]

Quite a few were local internship, then going away to good programs. Situations change for people. Some develop local roots that keep them there.

Truly, what brands you is your "fellowship". That is the school of thought for your clinical subspecialty, with whom you debate most of the time scientifically.

 

[Shifty B]

score well on step 1/2, do well on your clinical rotations, and be decently productive during your phd and it won't matter.

Mmm. Doing well on step 1/2 is very important. The other most important thing is where you go to medical school. Grades are too hard to decipher, etc. A productive PhD, sadly, is least important.

Truly, what brands you is your "fellowship". That is the school of thought for your clinical subspecialty, with whom you debate most of the time scientifically.

This is partially true. That is, it's more true in some specialties than others. I'm sure in medicine and peds it is, because you have a long fellowship. Not so much for some specialties. Rad onc, derm, anesthesia, radiology, etc.

Plus, it doesn't account for the easiest way to get a top fellowship, which is to be a resident there. At any given time, you need to go to the best possible place that fits within your other constraints (geographic limitations, spouse, family, etc).

 

[smithers12]

what exactly qualifies as "nowhere near as impressive" when you have their students matching ortho at hss, ophtho at wilmer, rads at hopkins? fair amount of med and peds staying internally, but that's probably because pitt is a world class institution where their students prefer to stay at home than match anywhere else

 

[MSTP18]

what exactly qualifies as "nowhere near as impressive" when you have their students matching ortho at hss, ophtho at wilmer, rads at hopkins? fair amount of med and peds staying internally, but that's probably because pitt is a world class institution where their students prefer to stay at home than match anywhere else

Also when you're 30+ years old, potentially with spouse and kids, and have just lived somewhere for 7-9 years, it's not a small task to uproot your life. On top of that, based on my own experiences and those of my classmates, you don't know what Pitt might be offering some of those MSTP students to get them to stay. My home institution was promising some of us fellowships, techs/lab space and funding during residency, and even attending positions waiting for us after training if we didn't leave. Pitt just sunk ~$1M into each of those kids. They want that ROI, not just to pump out great physician-scientists for other institutions.

 

[Doctor&Geek]

Also when you're 30+ years old, potentially with spouse and kids, and have just lived somewhere for 7-9 years, it's not a small task to uproot your life. On top of that, based on my own experiences and those of my classmates, you don't know what Pitt might be offering some of those MSTP students to get them to stay. My home institution was promising some of us fellowships, techs/lab space and funding during residency, and even attending positions waiting for us after training if we didn't leave. Pitt just sunk ~$1M into each of those kids. They want that ROI, not just to pump out great physician-scientists for other institutions.

Totally the opposite here...

 

[MSTP18]

Totally the opposite here...

Is "here" Pitt or somewhere else?

 

[Neuronix]

Totally the opposite here...

I didn't go to Pitt, but I didn't even get an interview at my home residency program.

Then again, I already knew that I was defective. At least I matched--I know several people who didn't.

 

[Doctor&Geek]

Is "here" Pitt or somewhere else?

Elsewhere.

 

[MDPhDyeah]

I think most people at programs who have been tracking where students go each year will tell you not to be concerned. Every year has outliers who won't match into a place that is immediately perceived as a "good" place. There is pretty much always a reason for this. These are the most likely situations:
1. The place they matched IS actually good for whatever that person cares about.
2. Truly personal reasons/geographical constraints. Spouse has restrictions on where he/she can work etc.
3. The person failed a shelf/clerkship. This is really NOT hard to do when you start back in the wards. If you start clerkships not taking them seriously from day 1 this is a real risk and once you have that on your transcript you've pretty much lost any advantage your PhD ever bought you.
4. It turns out they're an dingus who doesn't play well with others in clinic.

Maybe the last year wasn't stellar for them but you probably should look at their matching more broadly (ex. 2015 doesn't look so shabby). If you go to any place that has even a decent reputation and you don't mess anything up terribly you will be fine.

 

[Neuronix]

If you go to any place that has even a decent reputation and you don't mess anything up terribly you will be fine.

Wishful thinking but inaccurate. This reminds me of the "don't worry about step one score, just dont fail" outdated advice. See:

MD/PhD: Longer, Harder, Faster: Decoding MD/PhD match lists

MD/PhD: Longer, Harder, Faster: The effects of "score creep". Trends in residency selection criteria

 

[Palaver87]

I was from Pitt. It's hard to say what the cause is since I have not attended other medical schools. I don't really want to badmouth my alma mater, but people should know.

My hypothesis is that one possible cause might be due to the old fashioned teaching done there. The Pitt ethos is to jam pack your entire day with as much stuff as possible (e.g., with lectures, PBLs, etc) which gives little time to study on your own. The lectures given by faculty are much less high yield and lower quality than what can be found online nowadays, but Pitt faculty had trouble accepting that. They have changed now somewhat, so I have heard. Students don't really learn from in person lectures anymore; it's more online and self study nowadays because the online lectures are so good. Not even sure that med school lectures are needed anymore tbh. The ethos ultimately might cause a low step 1 score despite working hard. Also, Pitt gives 3.5 weeks for Step 1 studying, and they are *very* resistant to giving you any more time. Contrast this to say a place like Yale where the ethos is more self learning.

The Pitt ethos also holds during the clinical years. Days are packed from 7AM until maybe 5PM. The more packed, the better, so they think. Faculty are proud of their dedicated teaching sessions despite the fact that they are subpar and just get in the way of learning for the shelf. Faculty often pimp you on things that frankly do not appear on the shelf exam and are more intern level (e.g., doses in IM, that odd nerve in surgery). It is therefore difficult to get a good shelf score and a good clinical score at the same time. I assume that this probably holds in other schools as well, but maybe not to the extent that it happens at Pitt? Clinical rotation length are also on the shorter side. IM is 2 months, surgery is 1.5 months, Peds 1 month, OB/GYN 1 month, etc which gives little time to study for the shelf exams. Instead, Pitt requires a rotation called specialty care and CAMP-C which take up 3 months in 3rd year which no residency really cares about. Faculty also almost always request patient logs, essays, super detailed H&Ps, etc that are more busy work than learning.

Again, this may also happen at other med schools, but I have not attended them, so I can only say for Pitt

 

[Neuronix]

I was from Pitt.

Did they "[promise you] fellowships, techs/lab space and funding during residency, and even attending positions after training if [you] didn't leave" ?

 

[Skindoc83]

Did they "[promise you] fellowships, techs/lab space and funding during residency, and even attending positions after training if [you] didn't leave" ?

I’m not from Pitt but when I interviewed there for derm residency they did

 

[Palaver87]

Did they "[promise you] fellowships, techs/lab space and funding during residency, and even attending positions after training if [you] didn't leave" ?

lol no

 

[MSTPlease]

I was from Pitt. It's hard to say what the cause is since I have not attended other medical schools. I don't really want to badmouth my alma mater, but people should know.

My hypothesis is that one possible cause might be due to the old fashioned teaching done there. The Pitt ethos is to jam pack your entire day with as much stuff as possible (e.g., with lectures, PBLs, etc) which gives little time to study on your own. The lectures given by faculty are much less high yield and lower quality than what can be found online nowadays, but Pitt faculty had trouble accepting that. They have changed now somewhat, so I have heard. Students don't really learn from in person lectures anymore; it's more online and self study nowadays because the online lectures are so good. Not even sure that med school lectures are needed anymore tbh. The ethos ultimately might cause a low step 1 score despite working hard. Also, Pitt gives 3.5 weeks for Step 1 studying, and they are *very* resistant to giving you any more time. Contrast this to say a place like Yale where the ethos is more self learning.

The Pitt ethos also holds during the clinical years. Days are packed from 7AM until maybe 5PM. The more packed, the better, so they think. Faculty are proud of their dedicated teaching sessions despite the fact that they are subpar and just get in the way of learning for the shelf. Faculty often pimp you on things that frankly do not appear on the shelf exam and are more intern level (e.g., doses in IM, that odd nerve in surgery). It is therefore difficult to get a good shelf score and a good clinical score at the same time. I assume that this probably holds in other schools as well, but maybe not to the extent that it happens at Pitt? Clinical rotation length are also on the shorter side. IM is 2 months, surgery is 1.5 months, Peds 1 month, OB/GYN 1 month, etc which gives little time to study for the shelf exams. Instead, Pitt requires a rotation called specialty care and CAMP-C which take up 3 months in 3rd year which no residency really cares about. Faculty also almost always request patient logs, essays, super detailed H&Ps, etc that are more busy work than learning.

Again, this may also happen at other med schools, but I have not attended them, so I can only say for Pitt

Looking at your list it still looks good to me but just to add some direct comparison:

Some of that definitely happens at Sinai (eg pimping on non-shelf stuff) but I have to say we definitely don’t appear to have the same amount of didactics during clinicals and given our 2 year pre clinical, MSTPs can easily take 6 or more weeks for dedicated step 1 studying. We don’t have the random clerkship you have (instead we have 10 weeks of elective time) but our clerkship lengths are pretty similar to yours (6 weeks IM, 8 weeks for surg (but only 4 on gen surg, the other 4 on subspecialties and/or anesthesia and/or SICU, peds and ob 5 weeks each).

I think maybe one person this year matched below #3 on their list with a majority matching #1. I know a couple people who wanted interviews at MGH/UCSF who didn’t get them but if you score in the 220s on step 1 or have mostly passes in the clinical year (when the majority of the MSTPs do much better than that) you can’t really blame that on the MSTP.

We also are fortunate to be in Manhattan where there are 4 top tier academic hospitals so while our list might seem more diverse, I imagine if Sinai were the only local option (like it is for Pitt), a lot of the people going to other manhattan hospitals would have stayed at Sinai instead.