Does this mean applying to residency after finishing residency make one a stronger applicant?
How so? because of more training?
Yes.
These graduates probably have lower Step scores than their future fellow residents.
Not necessarily. See below.
Did they retake their Steps?
You can't retake a Step exam if you passed.
OP: Yes, those were probably preliminary slots that you saw, but the situation you refer to does happen, although not commonly and not usually intentionally. This happens most often when residents decide to switch fields. However, I would not recommend this as a strategy unless you are comfortable practicing the first specialty. Plus, I have heard that there may be a problem in getting funding to do a second residency, but I don't know anything more about that issue.
In my anecdotal experience, doing a residency in one field definitely makes you a better candidate for almost any other field. All things being equal, you will have letters of recommendation attesting to your skills as a
resident, so you will be a known quantity. You won't be waking your resident in the middle of the night asking stupid questions. You will be treated with more respect by everyone.
For example, when I was a surgery resident, we had two interns (in different years ) who had completed their medical residencies and decided to be surgeons instead. As you can imagine, they were
very competent interns and residents. They knew how to admit and manage patients. All they had to do was learn surgery. They were treated much differently and with more respect by residents and attendings alike. But there's no reason to do that intentionally. If you want to be a surgeon, just do surgery.
I worked with a surgery attending who had done a pedes residency first. Again, not intentionally, he just changed his mind.
Some people do medicine and go into anesthesia or other fields from there.
I know a rhuematologist who became an orthopod. ( That means he did an extra 5 years of residency.).
As you may know, plastics has two pathways: match into a combined 6 year program, or do general surgery, finish, and then do plastics (8 years total). Of course, for those programs, that's the standard route. Again, no guarantee that you'll get into plastics after doing general.
A few people, I believe, do a full medicine residency and then (re) apply to derm ( I don't have numbers, purely anecdotal ). Again, no guarantees on getting in after doing prior residencies, but if your heart is set on it, and you can live with medicine, it's worth a try. In those cases, a year of related research is a good idea as well.
