For those with residencies that require a Prelim year or Trans.Yr.

[RussianJoo]

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For those of you who are applying or have applied to residencies such as Rads, Anesthesia, Derm and others that require you to do either a transitional year or intern year in IM or Surg, how many of you changed your personal statement for those prelim placements? How many of you had an LOR for that prelim placement, i.e. a letter addressed to the prelim PDs stating how good of an IM intern you'll be or a Gen-Surg intern. Or did all of you just include the same LORs as you did for your specialty, i.e. letters that talked about how great of a radiologist you'll be or whatever.

Thanks for your feedback.

 

[lord_jeebus]

Most people I know did not write a separate statement, but I think it would make sense to at least write a bit about what you're looking to get out of your PGY-1 training.

 

[twintiger32]

currently a transitional intern...

most of us used the same personal statement, with an added paragraph at the end explaining why you want to attend that particular internship and how it will help you be the best ___ologist in the future.

And I used 2 medicine letters, and 1 ophtho letter, if that helps.

 

[RussianJoo]

Thank you for replying.

 

[RussianJoo]

currently a transitional intern...

most of us used the same personal statement, with an added paragraph at the end explaining why you want to attend that particular internship and how it will help you be the best ___ologist in the future.

And I used 2 medicine letters, and 1 ophtho letter, if that helps.

But were any of the medicine letters geared towards the prelim year? I plan on having 1 medicine letter, 2 anesthesia letters and an ICU letter, and then I'll pick which ones to send where. but all of them will say what makes me a good candidate for anesthesia. Should I have someone write me a letter saying how i'll be a good candidate for medicine or transitional year?

 

[twintiger32]

probably doesn't really matter, but it can't hurt to have them tailor it to your prelim/transitional.

 

[RussianJoo]

thanks for the reply. happy new year.

 

[dragonfly99]

Russianjoo,
if you are competitive for anesthesiology then I doubt getting a prelim year will be super hard, although some of the IM ones are sought after. I think if you have enough programs on your list (and do research on which ones might be very hard to get vs. less hard) you should be O.K. Transitional years are notorious for being hard to get, though. Surgery prelim years are known for being kind of heinous and thus less hard to match into, but I guess it all depends on what you like to do all day...

I don't think you HAVE to write a separate personal statement, but it definitely wouldn't hurt. I think adding one paragraph on to the PS you have for anesthesia would probably be adequate also, but since I'm kind of OCD I'd probably just write a separate PS for IM prelim years and go for one of those.

Usually I think there are some unfilled surgical prelim years and maybe a few medicine ones floating around as well in the scramble. Not that you'd ever want to do that, but it's always an option.

It sounds like you've set yourself up pretty well to compete for anesthesia if you'll have 2 anesthesiology letters.

I don't really think that you need to have people write letters specifically saying why you want to do a prelim year (in med. or surgery). They pretty much know you need it to do anesthesia, and as long as you can explain in your interview, and maybe a little in your PS, why you want to do THEIR prelim year, it should be O.K. Getting LOR writers to write 2 separate letters might be hard to do.

 

[RussianJoo]

Happy New Year!!! Thank you very much for your post. as always it's very informative.

Do you think that prelim surgery spots are easier to get than prelim medicine spots? one would assume that since the intern year of surgery is the hardest year of the residency not too many would want to do it if they had a choice between that and an easier medicine year. Or since Surgery is a competitive residency a lot of the people who didn't match into a categorical surgery program will do a prelim year and try to find an open pgy2 spot next year?

My plan for the PS is to write mostly about myself and my characteristics and my background and then just have one paragraph of why i picked anesthesia and why i think i would make a good anesthesiologist. For the prelim year I'll simply replace that paragraph with why I picked medicine and why I think I would do a good job in my intern year.

thanks again for the help.

 

[Ludicolo]

Do you think that prelim surgery spots are easier to get than prelim medicine spots? one would assume that since the intern year of surgery is the hardest year of the residency not too many would want to do it if they had a choice between that and an easier medicine year.

Without question. For that reason.

 

[Winged Scapula]

Do you think that prelim surgery spots are easier to get than prelim medicine spots? one would assume that since the intern year of surgery is the hardest year of the residency not too many would want to do it if they had a choice between that and an easier medicine year. Or since Surgery is a competitive residency a lot of the people who didn't match into a categorical surgery program will do a prelim year and try to find an open pgy2 spot next year?

Both points are true.

Very few who have a choice between Prelim Surgery, Prelim Medicine and TY would choose a Prelim Surgery year. So traditionally there have been hundreds of these positions open after the match each year.

With the increases popularity of surgery, many who do not match to a categorical position will do a Prelim year and hopefully get a second year categorical position the following year (if they are lucky). Thus fewer positions are available than before.

By and large however, Prelim Surgery would be easier to get than Prelim Medicine.

 

[RussianJoo]

thanks for the replies. Happy New Year!!

 

[4424]

i used the same PS with an extra paragraph stating what i hoped to get out of medicine to make me a more well rounded physician, etc.

i dont think you need your letters to specifically say you'd be a good medicine intern. i just used more medicine LORs instead of more ophtho LORs

 

[RussianJoo]

thanks for the post.

 

[Wrigleyville]

Just say something about how the intern year will help you prepare for gas/rads/whatever, and why you would be an asset to the program. They know you're not doing a medicine/surgery internship because you love medicine/surgery with every fiber of your being, otherwise you'd be doing that full residency instead.