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I mean radiology had a 92% match rate until it suddenly didn't. In 2020 you literally had a 98% chance of matching DR if your step 1 was above 220. In 2022 you had a 68% chance of matching if your step 1 was above 220.I asked this in a thread I made previously and it seemed unanimous agreement that neurology would remain DO friendly. I believe even @Goro and others commented on it. DO and Neurology
For neurology the MD and DO match rates haven't changed much but the IMG/FMG match rate is down from 64.9% to 52.2% which suggests they're being squeezed out by US grads. Meanwhile match rate for other less competitive specialties like IM/FM/Peds/Path haven't really changed. I suspect once the IMG/FMG match rate plateaus, the DO match rate will start going down as well.
Also we can just look at charting outcomes from 2020 and 2022 for competitive specialties with more than 10 DO applicants.
Match Rate Change DO 2020-2022 | Match Rate Change MD 2020-2022 | Net Applicant Change MD+DO 2020-2022 | DO Match Rate Change vs Applicant Increase | MD Match Rate Change vs Applicant Increase | |
Anes | -13.0% | -0.1% | 14.1% | 1.1% | 14.0% |
Derm | -18.0% | -13.1% | 19.0% | 1.0% | 5.9% |
IR | -4.4% | 0.1% | 24.9% | 20.5% | 25.0% |
NSGY | 38.7% | -0.9% | 0.9% | 39.6% | 0.0% |
OBGYN | -4.3% | -2.1% | 9.6% | 5.3% | 7.5% |
Ortho | -7.6% | -13.9% | 25.2% | 17.6% | 11.3% |
ENT | 4.8% | -5.7% | 16.8% | 21.6% | 11.1% |
PM&R | -20.2% | -3.8% | 25.1% | 4.9% | 21.3% |
DR | -26.8% | -12.3% | 29.9% | 3.1% | 17.6% |
GS | -7.5% | -1.6% | 11.7% | 4.2% | 10.1% |
Pretty much every competitive specialty had a decrease in match rates between 2020 and 2022 but the DO match rate dropped more than MD. If you look at the MD and DO match rate vs applicant increase (higher is better), MDs fared much better when factoring in the % of increased applications except in ortho, neurosurgery and ENT. The sample size of neurosurgery, IR and ENT is like 20 so that trend can't really be trusted.
Ex: For anesthesia ERAS reported an applicant increase of 14% between 2020 and 2022. The MD match rate didn't change. The DO match rate dropped 13% so DOs had a disproportionately lower match rate.
If you just look at raw numbers:
Number of DOs applying to the above specialties was 2,583 in 2020 and 3,214 in 2022. Increase of 24.4%
Number of DOs matching to the above specialties was 1,174 in 2020 and 1,080 in 2022. Decrease of 8%
Basically outside of orthopedic surgery DOs are getting squeezed out of anything competitive.
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