Dermatology 8th most competitive in new Charting Outcomes

[odyssey2]

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For US MD seniors, match rate of 85%. A lot of surgical subspecialties (and general surgery!) had lower match rates. Getting easier to match, or are other specialties just getting harder?

 

[username456789]

Match rate is but one of many pieces of the pie.

 

[slowthai]

@Dr. Doctor MD

 

[Dr. Doctor MD]

@Dr. Doctor MD

Derm has some of the highest self selection prior to applicants applying
Derm had the highest AOA percentage of any specialty by far (47% vs 43% vs <40% everything else)
Derm had the second highest step 1 score of any specialty (Plastic surgery had 1 point higher this year)
Derm has one of the highest research outputs of any specialty (19 this year)
Derm likely has the highest percentage of research years (can't prove this for sure, but I don't see any other field that does research years with this consistency)
Derm has a significant prestige bias that pushes out a lot of people from lower tiers schools
There are many people with 0 interviews that don't show up in the data
The merger added roughly 50 more spots to the match denominator this year
Also there happened to be a small contraction in US seniors applying in 2020. Higher or same overall quality, but I think 50 or so less than 2019.

Comparing the raw match % between specialties means nothing.

So no Derm is not the "8th most competitive specialty". I would say its a very close tie between Derm = Plastics = Neurosurg = ENT = Ortho = IR for most competitive specialties. Trying to compare within these fields is stupid and pointless, and honestly who cares.

 

[asmallchild]

Derm has some of the highest self selection prior to applicants applying
Derm had the highest AOA percentage of any specialty by far (47% vs 43% vs <40% everything else)
Derm had the second highest step 1 score of any specialty (Plastic surgery had 1 point higher this year)
Derm has one of the highest research outputs of any specialty (19 this year)
Derm likely has the highest percentage of research years (can't prove this for sure, but I don't see any other field that does research years with this consistency)
Derm has a significant prestige bias that pushes out a lot of people from lower tiers schools
There are many people with 0 interviews that don't show up in the data
The merger added roughly 50 more spots to the match denominator this year
Also there happened to be a small contraction in US seniors applying in 2020. Higher or same overall quality, but I think 50 or so less than 2019.

Comparing the raw match % between specialties means nothing.

So no Derm is not the "8th most competitive specialty". I would say its a very close tie between Derm = Plastics = Neurosurg = ENT = Ortho = IR for most competitive specialties. Trying to compare within these fields is stupid and pointless, and honestly who cares.

Agreed on all of the above, particularly the bolded.

But just to play devil's advocate, it wouldn't surprise me if the competitiveness of derm has dropped a little.

I don't think it's the "8th most competitive specialty" but I did note with surprise in the physician satisfaction surveys that derm is starting to drop a little over the last few years (where historically it has always finished at #1 or #2)

Anecdotally, I love what I do. But I did notice a decrease in satisfaction myself as patient volumes increased along with the amount of busywork I am forced to do (this really came into focus when my practice made the transition into EHR a few years ago).

Obviously the burden of MIPS and the awkward nature of EHR isn't inherent to derm but I do think (or at least, it does for me) the aggravation builds quicker with a higher volume specialty.

As my husband always likes to remind me, he thought I was much more pleasant as a derm fellow than a derm attending 🙂

 

[MOHS_01]

Agreed on all of the above, particularly the bolded.

But just to play devil's advocate, it wouldn't surprise me if the competitiveness of derm has dropped a little.

I don't think it's the "8th most competitive specialty" but I did note with surprise in the physician satisfaction surveys that derm is starting to drop a little over the last few years (where historically it has always finished at #1 or #2)

Anecdotally, I love what I do. But I did notice a decrease in satisfaction myself as patient volumes increased along with the amount of busywork I am forced to do (this really came into focus when my practice made the transition into EHR a few years ago).

Obviously the burden of MIPS and the awkward nature of EHR isn't inherent to derm but I do think (or at least, it does for me) the aggravation builds quicker with a higher volume specialty.

As my husband always likes to remind me, he thought I was much more pleasant as a derm fellow than a derm attending 🙂

#truth