DO pursuing Anesthesia after failing to match EM

[DjPsychotic]

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Hello everyone! Long time lurker looking for advice.

Basically I went into the ACGME match with 8 EM interviews, felt really good about my chances, but ended up not matching. I ended up taking an AOA (non-ACGME accredited) Traditional Rotating Internship (TRI) year for the upcoming year and hoping to reapply Anesthesia for next year.

Late 4th year I did 2 Anesthesia rotations at community hospitals and loved it! I got 2 Anesthesia letters from those rotations with the hopes of applying but it was too late. Definitely ready to switch gears to Anesthesia now.

I'm planning on going into the match next year applying for R1/Advanced/Categorical programs in this order. I'm hoping my AOA TRI internship will count as intern year, but I've read here that most programs won't. I have reached out to some programs and at least 1 has said they do accept AOA intern year.

Is there anything I should consider when applying this year? Should I do a rotation during my intern year? Should I keep an eye out on R1 positions that come up during the year? Will I have any issues with funding? etc? Thanks again for the advice.

Step 1/COMLEX 1: 242/578
Step 2/COMLEX II: 226/475
COMLEX PE: pass
No red flags

 

[AdmiralChz]

Your best bet for programs accepting your AOA year is to investigate any programs that have transitioned from AOA to ACGME accreditation recently, there might be some leeway at those institutions. I don't know any off the top of my head, but others might.

Here's the document you should review: https://www.acgme.org/Portals/0/PFAssets/ProgramRequirements/040_anesthesiology_2017-07-01.pdf
Check out pages 9 and 10, at the PD's discretion they can consider counting your non-ACGME "residency" but honestly this is hoping for a lot. They certainly don't have to. Again, your best bet is to seek out DO-friendly or formerly DO programs as they will be much more likely to understand what a TRI year even is.

The competition for R spots tends to be pretty steep - there are only 100 or so nationwide and many are at mid to high-level university programs that get competitive applicants from surgical specialties. Your best bet is to probably focus on C and then A spots, again at DO-friendly programs.

 

[okayplayer]

Damn dude. 242 and you didn't match EM. Getting brutal.

 

[MightBeACylon439]

Isn't a 20/100 pt drop from step 1/lvl 1 to step 2/lvl2 considered a red flag?

 

[Mehd School]

Damn dude. 242 and you didn't match EM. Getting brutal.

You didn't notice that he dropped from 70th+ %ile on step 1 to 18th %ile on step 2. That probably cost him 5+ interviews.

 

[Hippocrates II]

Damn dude. 242 and you didn't match EM. Getting brutal.

DO student: (-)10 debuff to matching
Step I to Step II decline: (-20) debuff to matching