Does your med school need the residency you want?

[Sephiroth]

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So I often see discussed the importance of your school having a residency program either of their own or at least in the area for the more competitive specialties because this is important for getting the necessary research and letters to get into these competitive residencies. So here's what I've started doing:

These are the residencies I would consider the more competitive ones: Anesthesiology, derm, neurosurgery, ophthalmology, ortho surg, otolarynngology, plastics (both integrated and regular), rad (diagnostic), rad onc, urology.

For these residencies, I've been looking for med schools that don't have a residency program in the area. Then I check the match lists (hoping I can find them) to see this school has matched student to these specialties that they lack the residency program for. We must keep in mind that these programs tend to not have a lot of ppl match anyway.

I've only just started, but here are some things I've found so far:
Arkansas matched 1 student into plastics this year, none last year (and no rad onc)
USF matched 1 student this year, and 4 last year into anesthesiology
Vermont had 2 student match ophthalmology this year and last year, and one match rad onc last year
Many schools which are the only schools in the state tend to have all of these specialty residencies.
Match lists can be hard to find

So if anyone wants to help add some info, it would be appreciated. Just from these examples, its clearly not impossible, but I'm trying to get a gauge on how significant it is to go somewhere with a specialty residency program to get into said specialty. Also, please feel free to add any other general input on the subject.

 

[aSagacious]

I would avoid choosing your school based on your (anticipated) specialty choice simply because it's extremely tough to know what specialty you want to pursue before starting med school (more specifically, rotations).

 

[DoctwoB]

Agree with frazier. Home program is not absolutely essential, but is sure helpful for home research, rotations, rec letters, plus a chance to land your home residency program.


Also agree that you will probably change your mind on specialty choice, so this should not be the main factor in your decision unless you are extremely set on a field.

 

[Sephiroth]

I would avoid choosing your school based on your (anticipated) specialty choice simply because it's extremely tough to know what specialty you want to pursue before starting med school (more specifically, rotations).

Oh, I'm not saying otherwise, and I will say I'm not sure what I want to go into yet, and I know that most will change their minds regardless. I'm just trying to look at what effects it might have, if it should play any role in decision making for people who do feel certain, or a school lacks multiple specialty residencies of interest. Though the examples are few, they seem to indicate its doable (possibly with the help of away rotations), especially keeping in mind few ppl match into these specialties anyway. I don't doubt that having a home program can make things easier though. I'm just curious how much easier.

 

[tantacles]

I would avoid choosing your school based on your (anticipated) specialty choice simply because it's extremely tough to know what specialty you want to pursue before starting med school (more specifically, rotations).

I think the point of this post was not to solicit advice about how to choose a medical school, but rather, to get help finding out which schools that do not have specialties in competitive fields have recently had grads match into those programs anyway.

That being said, OP, I unfortunately have no new information to add to your list. 😛

 

[aSagacious]

Oh, I'm not saying otherwise, and I will say I'm not sure what I want to go into yet, and I know that most will change their minds regardless. I'm just trying to look at what effects it might have, if it should play any role in decision making for people who do feel certain, or a school lacks multiple specialty residencies of interest. Though the examples are few, they seem to indicate its doable (possibly with the help of away rotations), especially keeping in mind few ppl match into these specialties anyway. I don't doubt that having a home program can make things easier though. I'm just curious how much easier.

Oh, sorry I misunderstood your question. I'm sure applicants with home programs have an advantage for the reasons listed by DoctwoB but I am totally unsure how great that advantage is.

 

[thesauce]

So I often see discussed the importance of your school having a residency program either of their own or at least in the area for the more competitive specialties because this is important for getting the necessary research and letters to get into these competitive residencies. So here's what I've started doing:

These are the residencies I would consider the more competitive ones: Anesthesiology, derm, neurosurgery, ophthalmology, ortho surg, otolarynngology, plastics (both integrated and regular), rad (diagnostic), rad onc, urology...

Anesthesia is not competitive. I don't understand how this keeps coming up.

 

[Sephiroth]

Anesthesia is not competitive. I don't understand how this keeps coming up.

Ok, well you would likely have more insight than I on this topic. Which specialties are the ones that tend to require significant work in that specialty to get a residency spot? (as this is the most relevant to what I'm asking - if a specialty is really competitive for just STEP1 scores but requires no work in the field, then it doesn't really matter to this question) From what I've heard, plastics and rad onc are the most significant cases of this, but I could be wrong. If there is anything that should be added or removed from the list, please let me know.

 

[drizzt3117]

Not having a home program is suboptimal, but not necc a kiss of death; it just means you need to do a significant amount of aways if you don't have one and probably get letters from there.

A lot of people do actually know what they want to go into before med school; I think about 1/3-1/2 of my classmates are going into what they said they were going to as M1s, so I wouldn't necc buy into the rubric that you shouldn't have an idea of what you're going to do.

 

[tiedyeddog]

Ok, well you would likely have more insight than I on this topic. Which specialties are the ones that tend to require significant work in that specialty to get a residency spot? (as this is the most relevant to what I'm asking - if a specialty is really competitive for just STEP1 scores but requires no work in the field, then it doesn't really matter to this question) From what I've heard, plastics and rad onc are the most significant cases of this, but I could be wrong. If there is anything that should be added or removed from the list, please let me know.

(I could be wrong, but here goes):
It helps to have a home program in stuff like:

Neurosurg
Ortho
Plastics
Derm (I guess?)
ENT
Optho

It's easier to make connections and count on ranking high at your home institution. Any field that almost requires you to have research and a large % of match applicants have AOA would probably be helped with a home institution.

I would personally pick a school that had a department I was interested in over one that didn't for the three reasons:

1. The one listed above, home institution = better chances of matching somewhere.
2. You get to do a home rotation to make sure you like it before having to get up and do aways somewhere else.
3. Odds are, if a school has that program and another doesn't, the one having it is probably more well known. Not universal, but pretty true. I am talking about just general residency programs like combined plastics, nsurg, rad onc, etc. Usually only the biggest, most well funded institutions can afford to bring in enough attendings to form a residency program that could allow a resident to get properly trained in these "lower volume" specialities (demand is lower, in general).

 

[thesauce]

Ok, well you would likely have more insight than I on this topic. Which specialties are the ones that tend to require significant work in that specialty to get a residency spot? (as this is the most relevant to what I'm asking - if a specialty is really competitive for just STEP1 scores but requires no work in the field, then it doesn't really matter to this question) From what I've heard, plastics and rad onc are the most significant cases of this, but I could be wrong. If there is anything that should be added or removed from the list, please let me know.

Most of the info can be found here: http://www.nrmp.org/data/chartingoutcomes2011.pdf

If you don't want to do the leg work, you can just look at this: http://residency.wustl.edu/medadmin...62353a93c5c35cb186256f850071bd86?OpenDocument

You'll notice that Anesthesia's competitiveness is listed as "low" for the last 2 years, contrary to the popular belief that it has been increasing in competitiveness.

 

[Slack3r]

To answer the initial question, Texas Tech had two plastics matches last year, and AFAIK TTech doesn't even have a plastics department.

 

[Sephiroth]

To answer the initial question, Texas Tech had two plastics matches last year, and AFAIK TTech doesn't even have a plastics department.

Cool, that definitely goes along with the main idea. and yes, there are no plastics residencies in El Paso.



On a related subject, how hard or easy is it to get away rotations/externships for these competitive specialties? And do these help a lot in getting in to that program, similarly to (even if not quite as strong) a home program?

 

[Law2Doc]

Anesthesia is not competitive. I don't understand how this keeps coming up.

It's popularity is like a roller coaster. There have been times when it has been extremely competitive, which is how it made it into ROAD in the first place. The last few years it has been on a downturn in term of competitiveness.

 

[Law2Doc]

Not having a home program is suboptimal, but not necc a kiss of death; it just means you need to do a significant amount of aways if you don't have one and probably get letters from there...

agreed. You can always go elsewhere to do rad onc and make those necessary connections if you need to. I'd shy away from using match lists as you (OP) are trying to, because you are making huge inferences that aren't based on facts. I mean what makes you think the fact that nobody is matching into plastics has anything to do with the inadequacies of a school rather than the fact that nobody from that year wanted plastics. Premeds don't get it. A match list can look awful to you and yet if you ask the seniors they all got their dream residencies. Or vice versa -- the list could look nice on paper but be everyone's tenth choice. And you don't really know which programs in each field are good versus malignant. And things like plastics can be gotten into via surgery fellowships, so for all you know the folks there are simply going that route. You can't know any of this, and so you do yourself a huge disservice drawing conclusions from them. The match list tells you where folks are going, but it doesn't tell you what folks wanted or could get if they wanted. Basically it's useless to you.

 

[Slack3r]

I mean what makes you think the fact that nobody is matching into plastics has anything to do with the inadequacies of a school rather than the fact that nobody from that year wanted plastics.

I find that hard to believe...

 

[Law2Doc]

I find that hard to believe...

Where I went to med school we had a lot of interest in certain competitive fields, and almost none in others. I'd be surprised if you found too many schools that were not skewed one way or the other. Adcoms aren't interviewing based on field of interest, and many people don't make decisions until early 4th year, so it's totally expected that there will be years when everybody wants, say, optho, and years when none want optho. But my point is you are at a horrible vantage point to assess this, and do yourself more harm than good making gross assumptions.

When I was a premed I tried to use match lists too, so I get what you are trying to do, but now from the other side of things I can assure you it's foolhardy. Your assumptions have little in common with the actual thought processes of those 4 years further down the road. It's like going on an archeological dig, finding a ceremonial urn and presuming you know what ritual it was used for. Whether you are right or not is based on lots of assumptions involving things that you really have no clue about. The story may sound good, but I wouldn't bet you are right.

 

[Sephiroth]

That's why I've tried to look at multiple years when I can find the match lists. And I'm not trying to draw inferences from specific schools for reasons similar to what you've stated. More I'm just trying to put together a general sense of the impact of having a home residency has on getting into a residency for the more competitive fields. If anyone can answer my earlier questions about aways, that would be appreciated.

 

[drizzt3117]

I find that hard to believe...

I go to a top 25 school and no one from my class is doing plastics; one person is doing derm, 18 ortho.

 

[Law2Doc]

That's why I've tried to look at multiple years when I can find the match lists. And I'm not trying to draw inferences from specific schools for reasons similar to what you've stated. More I'm just trying to put together a general sense of the impact of having a home residency has on getting into a residency for the more competitive fields. If anyone can answer my earlier questions about aways, that would be appreciated.

Multiple years is slightly better data, but still not enough to be "good" data. Basically you might be increasing the likelihood if your assumptions up from 25% to 45%. Still wrong most of the time. And as far as staying at your home residency it doesnt tell you much because you again don't know if people wanted to stay or go or even what field they really wanted. Perhaps a place with a lot if people who stay at the home residency are doing so because nobody else will have them. Or maybe they stay because it's their first choice -- some people pick geographic ties over other factors. Or maybe all those rads folks staying at the home school were folks who really wanted derm and didnt get it. Or maybe it just happened to be a couple of very unique years in a row where lots of the more qualified people wanted optho in Ohio over other things, something that probably won't be repeated again and you cant read much more into it than that. Don't use match lists to determine what residencies you can get. You are basing your conclusions on very very questionable assumptions. You have no access to the raw data. It's like looking at the number 30 and assuming the question was 10 x 3, when in fact it may have been 5x 6. The fact that the number is 30 multiple years in a row doesn't really make you any more confident that you know the question.

 

[Sephiroth]

I don't think Im really asking which numbers added up to 30, just more so, "does 30 show up with any frequency?". I guess I was thinking people would prioritize specialty over area. Do people really get into rad while not having wanted rad?

 

[LizzyM]

May I suggest reverse engineering? Think of some hospitals where you'd like to do your residency and the specialty.... Then find the list of residents at that place in that specialty. With any luck, the listing will also tell you where the resident attended med school:

http://plasticsurgeryresidency.hms.harvard.edu/residents.shtml

http://radonc.duke.edu/modules/radoncprograms/index.php?id=18

http://dermatology.columbia.edu/education/current_residents.html

 

[drizzt3117]

I think the biggest problem is that premeds can evaluate the quality of residencies.

It's obv good if a school has students matching at top programs (I.e. Miami optho, MGH rads, HSS ortho, Stanford/Ucla derm, MSKCC rad onc) regardless of student preference. That doesn't happen by accident.

Multiple years is slightly better data, but still not enough to be "good" data. Basically you might be increasing the likelihood if your assumptions up from 25% to 45%. Still wrong most of the time. And as far as staying at your home residency it doesnt tell you much because you again don't know if people wanted to stay or go or even what field they really wanted. Perhaps a place with a lot if people who stay at the home residency are doing so because nobody else will have them. Or maybe they stay because it's their first choice -- some people pick geographic ties over other factors. Or maybe all those rads folks staying at the home school were folks who really wanted derm and didnt get it. Or maybe it just happened to be a couple of very unique years in a row where lots of the more qualified people wanted optho in Ohio over other things, something that probably won't be repeated again and you cant read much more into it than that. Don't use match lists to determine what residencies you can get. You are basing your conclusions on very very questionable assumptions. You have no access to the raw data. It's like looking at the number 30 and assuming the question was 10 x 3, when in fact it may have been 5x 6. The fact that the number is 30 multiple years in a row doesn't really make you any more confident that you know the question.

 

[Sephiroth]

May I suggest reverse engineering? Think of some hospitals where you'd like to do your residency and the specialty.... Then find the list of residents at that place in that specialty. With any luck, the listing will also tell you where the resident attended med school:

http://plasticsurgeryresidency.hms.harvard.edu/residents.shtml

http://radonc.duke.edu/modules/radoncprograms/index.php?id=18

http://dermatology.columbia.edu/education/current_residents.html

That's a really good idea I didn't think of. Thanks for giving me some starting points. Would you say plastics, rad on and derm are the best representations? They certainly seem to be the most competitive from what I've seen. And I guess I'll jsut try to use my judgement as for what other locations would be best to look at, since I'm not about to sift through every single derm plastics and rad onc program. I'll try to collect some data this weekend.

 

[drizzt3117]

I don't think Im really asking which numbers added up to 30, just more so, "does 30 show up with any frequency?". I guess I was thinking people would prioritize specialty over area. Do people really get into rad while not having wanted rad?

Its pretty uncommon to dual apply to multiple competitive specialties. I know of one person this cycle who dual applied rads/derm. Iirc they got very little derm love.

 

[LizzyM]

That's a really good idea I didn't think of. Thanks for giving me some starting points. Would you say plastics, rad on and derm are the best representations? They certainly seem to be the most competitive from what I've seen. And I guess I'll jsut try to use my judgement as for what other locations would be best to look at, since I'm not about to sift through every single derm plastics and rad onc program. I'll try to collect some data this weekend.

I think that the take home message is that you can start almost anywhere and end up somewhere doing what you'd like to do if you work hard and seek opportunities. Yes, it is helpful to have research experience but no one says you have to stay on campus the summer after first year. PIs at big name schools will take talented students from small schools for summer research.

Plastics, derm and rad onc are very different in terms of the type of work that is done each day, the interactions with patients and the like. I think you need to think a bit about why you want a career in medicine and why those specialty areas are attractive to you. Do keep in mind that you may find the working environment in one or the other to be not what you had expected and that your preferences may change over time.

 

[Sephiroth]

Plastics, derm and rad onc are very different in terms of the type of work that is done each day, the interactions with patients and the like. I think you need to think a bit about why you want a career in medicine and why those specialty areas are attractive to you. Do keep in mind that you may find the working environment in one or the other to be not what you had expected and that your preferences may change over time.

Oh, I wasn't saying those are the specialties I want. In fact, I really don't think I want to go to derm. Dunno about plastics or rad onc, I'm not sure what I want to do yet. I just thought those would be good examples as they are the most competitive residencies and tend to require research in the field - at least to my knowledge. I will definitely keep that advice in mind though as I try to figure out what I want to go in to.

 

[Law2Doc]

I think the biggest problem is that premeds can evaluate the quality of residencies.

It's obv good if a school has students matching at top programs (I.e. Miami optho, MGH rads, HSS ortho, Stanford/Ucla derm, MSKCC rad onc) regardless of student preference. That doesn't happen by accident.

The problem is premed students have no clue what the "top programs" are in most fields. It's a different list of hospitals for every specialty, and something you only find out by word of mouth from mentors later in med school. Most med students won't know the top programs in specialties outside your own ( which is why I don't even agree with all the places on your list above). So yeah, this isnt a high yield approach. Someplace that sounds great to premeds may actually be a lousy program for a particular specialty. And the best program in a particular field might be someplace a premed will have never heard of.

 

[drizzt3117]

With a little research, it'd be easy to figure out what the top programs are. My list of top programs in rads is almost the same prior to med school as my rank list is now. I think it'd be hard to argue my list isn't of top programs. It was intended as an example, not necc the top program in every field.

The problem is premed students have no clue what the "top programs" are in most fields. It's a different list of hospitals for every specialty, and something you only find out by word of mouth from mentors later in med school. Most med students won't know the top programs in specialties outside your own ( which is why I don't even agree with all the places on your list above). So yeah, this isnt a high yield approach. Someplace that sounds great to premeds may actually be a lousy program for a particular specialty. And the best program in a particular field might be someplace a premed will have never heard of.

 

[astrocreep96]

OP, I would try to find a school with departments you may be interested in. At the least, it gives you access to those fields early in medical school so you can rule them in or out before you need to get serious about research, connections, aways, etc.

drizzt, I disagree with regards to the quality of residency programs. That may be true for rads, but for others it is not the case. In ortho for example, whereas Jefferson may be an average med school, it is a top ortho residency. A premed has no way of knowing such things. Conversely, while Stanford is a great school, it has an average ortho program.

 

[Law2Doc]

...

drizzt, I disagree with regards to the quality of residency programs. That may be true for rads, but for others it is not the case. In ortho for example, whereas Jefferson may be an average med school, it is a top ortho residency. A premed has no way of knowing such things. Conversely, while Stanford is a great school, it has an average ortho program.

yep. Pretty much every big name place is very average (or worse) in at least one specialty. It doesn't jibe well with US news, and can really only be ascertained by talking to folks in the specialty. A lot of this is very fluid, and yesterday's mediocre program can be tomorrow's rising star, and vice versa, based on movement of faculty, PDs, chairmen.

And not only that, some of the best programs in certain fields are at hospitals that aren't med schools, meaning premeds will overlook them as they have perhaps never heard of them. Yet in 4 years that may be the Mecca of the field they are trying to get into.

Avoid match lists. You dont have enough context to draw the appropriate conclusions. I sure didn't when I was premed.

 

[Sephiroth]

so what are Harvard's weak specialties?

 

[drizzt3117]

OP, I would try to find a school with departments you may be interested in. At the least, it gives you access to those fields early in medical school so you can rule them in or out before you need to get serious about research, connections, aways, etc.

drizzt, I disagree with regards to the quality of residency programs. That may be true for rads, but for others it is not the case. In ortho for example, whereas Jefferson may be an average med school, it is a top ortho residency. A premed has no way of knowing such things. Conversely, while Stanford is a great school, it has an average ortho program.

If you read my post, I said that this info can easily be found online. Med students love to make top 25 or w/e lists of programs and discuss them ad nauseum.

 

[drizzt3117]

so what are Harvard's weak specialties?

Well, as mentioned in the book, the house of god lags a bit behind it's more famous counterparts in almost every specialty. I'd consider it no better than mid tier for rads. FM isn't too strong at any of the Harvard programs iirc.

 

[drizzt3117]

Much of this info can be found online. Radiology, neurosurg, etc have their own message boards where this stuff is discussed till thr end of time. I'm sure it's true for other specialties. It's sort of ridiciculous to argue premeds are smart enough to be doctors but can't do online research or *gasp* talk to clinicians.

yep. Pretty much every big name place is very average (or worse) in at least one specialty. It doesn't jibe well with US news, and can really only be ascertained by talking to folks in the specialty. A lot of this is very fluid, and yesterday's mediocre program can be tomorrow's rising star, and vice versa, based on movement of faculty, PDs, chairmen.

And not only that, some of the best programs in certain fields are at hospitals that aren't med schools, meaning premeds will overlook them as they have perhaps never heard of them. Yet in 4 years that may be the Mecca of the field they are trying to get into.

Avoid match lists. You dont have enough context to draw the appropriate conclusions. I sure didn't when I was premed.

 

[thesauce]

Much of this info can be found online. Radiology, neurosurg, etc have their own message boards where this stuff is discussed till thr end of time. I'm sure it's true for other specialties. It's sort of ridiciculous to argue premeds are smart enough to be doctors but can't do online research or *gasp* talk to clinicians.

But they don't. They go in assuming that the top schools have the top residencies and then pull out the match lists and go to town. We've seen it 100x100 times. In addition, they use the same metrics for all fields - Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Hopkins are always the best no matter what specialty they're discussing. No one wants to do the leg work to look through all of the subspecialty forums to come up with a list of the top residencies in each field, thus the conversations are always frivolous. Yes they can do it, but they don't.

 

[thesauce]

May I suggest reverse engineering? Think of some hospitals where you'd like to do your residency and the specialty.... Then find the list of residents at that place in that specialty. With any luck, the listing will also tell you where the resident attended med school:

http://plasticsurgeryresidency.hms.harvard.edu/residents.shtml

http://radonc.duke.edu/modules/radoncprograms/index.php?id=18

http://dermatology.columbia.edu/education/current_residents.html

Just curious: why did you choose these 3 programs?

 

[Sephiroth]

But they don't. They go in assuming that the top schools have the top residencies and then pull out the match lists and go to town. We've seen it 100x100 times. In addition, they use the same metrics for all fields - Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Hopkins are always the best no matter what specialty they're discussing. No one wants to do the leg work to look through all of the subspecialty forums to come up with a list of the top residencies in each field, thus the conversations are always frivolous. Yes they can do it, but they don't.

FWIW, it took about 5 minutes to figure out that MD Anderson and Memorial Sloan Kettering are generally considered the top 2 rad onc programs.

 

[thesauce]

FWIW, it took about 5 minutes to figure out that MD Anderson and Memorial Sloan Kettering are generally considered the top 2 rad onc programs.

Once you were challenged to do so, sure. However, for most premeds, it doesn't even cross their minds that specialty prestige may not follow the reputation of the institution as a whole. They pull up USNWR and a match list and start talking about it. I remember seeing a match list where someone matched radonc at MDACC and another matched at Hopkins. The post congratulated the guy from Hopkins even though MDACC is the undeniably stronger program.

Also, concentrating on the top 2 programs, representing a small fraction of the people who matched in radonc is not particularly informative. Can you name for me the top 10? Can you tell me which are the strongest in terms of placing people into solid academic positions versus cush private practice gigs?

See you in another 5 minutes?

 

[Sephiroth]

Once you were challenged to do so, sure. However, for most premeds, it doesn't even cross their minds that specialty prestige may not follow the reputation of the institution as a whole. They pull up USNWR and a match list and start talking about it. I remember seeing a match list where someone matched radonc at MDACC and another matched at Hopkins. The post congratulated the guy from Hopkins even though MDACC is the undeniably stronger program.

Then for the sake of every premed, I challenge you to challenge them!

Also, concentrating on the top 2 programs, representing a small fraction of the people who matched in radonc is not particularly informative. Can you name for me the top 10? Can you tell me which are the strongest in terms of placing people into solid academic positions versus cush private practice gigs?

See you in another 5 minutes?

Haha, that might take a bit longer. I know that UCSF, Harvard, Yale, Penn (hey, how bout that?!), Chicago, Mich are all up there. Stanford has been, but may be falling behind. Beaumont was for a bit, but has fallen apart.
As for the specifics, that might be more difficult and I would have to ask around a lot.

 

[drizzt3117]

Maybe I'm giving premeds too much credit; I was on aunumimnie and the rads forum here as a premed; I assumed it wasn't that uncommon.

​

But they don't. They go in assuming that the top schools have the top residencies and then pull out the match lists and go to town. We've seen it 100x100 times. In addition, they use the same metrics for all fields - Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Hopkins are always the best no matter what specialty they're discussing. No one wants to do the leg work to look through all of the subspecialty forums to come up with a list of the top residencies in each field, thus the conversations are always frivolous. Yes they can do it, but they don't.

 

[LizzyM]

Just curious: why did you choose these 3 programs?

just googled a big name school and "residents" and the name of a department and plucked the ones that had pictures and listed the name of the med school attended. I think that the take home message is that where you go to med school doesn't really matter as evidenced by those three links.

 

[drizzt3117]

just googled a big name school and "residents" and the name of a department and plucked the ones that had pictures and listed the name of the med school attended. I think that the take home message is that where you go to med school doesn't really matter as evidenced by those three links.

Well I believe that the top 3 classes in the Harvard plastics program are from the fellowship classes, unless I'm wrong so that throws things off. Of the integrated residents, 6/9 are from top 10 programs so I'm not sure how that proves that point. The duke program had 50% top 25 and Columbia had 45% top 15. It's still overwhelmingly self-selecting for top schools. The difference is especially large in surgical fields.

 

[LizzyM]

Well I believe that the top 3 classes in the Harvard plastics program are from the fellowship classes, unless I'm wrong so that throws things off. Of the integrated residents, 6/9 are from top 10 programs so I'm not sure how that proves that point. The duke program had 50% top 25 and Columbia had 45% top 15. It's still overwhelmingly self-selecting for top schools. The difference is especially large in surgical fields.

The residents in plastics at Harvard include grads from BU, George Washington, U Mass, Minnesota, Ohio State, University of Illinois, UMDNJ, Louisville.

If the Duke program has 50% who are not from top 25 adn Columbia has 55% not from top 15, how have I not proven my point that you can get into a good residency regardless of (LCME accredited) med school attended.

 

[drizzt3117]

The residents in plastics at Harvard include grads from BU, George Washington, U Mass, Minnesota, Ohio State, University of Illinois, UMDNJ, Louisville.

Only the bottom 3 classes are integrated, the other ones include people who did a general surg res followed by that fellowship as far as I can tell.

If the Duke program has 50% who are not from top 25 adn Columbia has 55% not from top 15, how have I not proven my point that you can get into a good residency regardless of (LCME accredited) med school attended.

It's certainly possibly but my experience is that most interviewees at top programs are from at least top 25 schools. There will be a few random people from state schools but they were few and far between.

 

[LizzyM]

Only the bottom 3 classes are integrated, the other ones include people who did a general surg res followed by that fellowship as far as I can tell.




It's certainly possibly but my experience is that most interviewees at top programs are from at least top 25 schools. There will be a few random people from state schools but they were few and far between.

But the fact remains that you can come from a state school and get a good residency so the idea that such a matriculation is the death knell for a good residency is bunk.

 

[thesauce]

The residents in plastics at Harvard include grads from BU, George Washington, U Mass, Minnesota, Ohio State, University of Illinois, UMDNJ, Louisville.

If the Duke program has 50% who are not from top 25 adn Columbia has 55% not from top 15, how have I not proven my point that you can get into a good residency regardless of (LCME accredited) med school attended.

Duke radonc is generally considered an average program. Try Harvard radonc and you'll see the selection bias we're talking about.

 

[LizzyM]

Duke radonc is generally considered an average program. Try Harvard radonc and you'll see the selection bias we're talking about.

Right, and MD/PhDs are over-represented in comparison to their proportion of the population. So, if you want to do radonc at Harvard you need to go to an Ivy league med school (wait, how did those guys from Tufts & NYU end up in there??) but I believe that a strong student from any med school is capable of matching into any specialty. For that reason, match lists aren't much good at determining whether a med school is a good place for an incoming M1 student.

 

[chronicidal]

Duke radonc is generally considered an average program. Try Harvard radonc and you'll see the selection bias we're talking about.

Harvard Radiation Oncology residents:
PGY-2: Harvard, Harvard, Yale, Yale, Stanford, UChicago, Vanderbilt, Dartmouth
PGY-3: Harvard, Harvard, Hopkins, Yale, WashU, Dartmouth, NYU
PGY-4: Harvard, Harvard, Penn, Yale, UChicago, Michigan, Cornell
PGY-5: Harvard, Harvard, Harvard, Harvard, Stanford, NYU, Tufts

 

[tantacles]

Harvard Radiation Oncology residents:
PGY-2: Harvard, Harvard, Yale, Yale, Stanford, UChicago, Vanderbilt, Dartmouth
PGY-3: Harvard, Harvard, Hopkins, Yale, WashU, Dartmouth, NYU
PGY-4: Harvard, Harvard, Penn, Yale, UChicago, Michigan, Cornell
PGY-5: Harvard, Harvard, Harvard, Harvard, Stanford, NYU, Tufts

As an aside, remember that many programs prefer to admit their own medical students to residency programs. While I can't say to what extent this holds true everywhere, I would say that odds are much better of getting into a top residency program in a specialty if you attend a medical school with a top residency and apply, after medical school, to said residency program.

I say that only because if you look at the list of PGY5's, there are 4 students from Harvard, the home institution, one from Stanford, a top 25, and two from non-top 25 institutions. So of the non-Harvard students, 2/3 were from "less prestigious" medical schools.

In any case, with 7-8 spots per year, there really isn't enough data to make a firm judgment on this.