Forced Resignation And Reapplying

[LPKR2016]

I would like some advice on my current circumstance. I am an FMG with good board scores. After close to 2 years of being in an IM program, I was forced to resign because of performance issues, that were linked to family and personal issues I was having. All those issues are taken care of now and I highlighted that in my PS. i didnt end up getting credit for PGY-2. And I havent been succesful in getting a vacant 2nd yr spot yet. I am looking to reapply in IM, this upcoming match cycle, and had the following questions.

1)Considering that I have been in residency for two years, do I have less chance to matching and starting over because of funding issues? Is it appropriate to ask on the interviews whether they would consider me for a 2nd yr spot?

2) I have strong faculty member LORs from my previous residency but my PD letter is not the best, he mentions some positive attributes but has several subjective statements that definitely do not help me, highlighting that I had core competency deficiencies and struggles . In some aspect, it looks suspicious to apply without a PD letter, but his letter will definitely not help me in gathering interviews. Is it better to exclude this letter from my application? Any advice would be apprecciated.

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[gutonc]

I would like some advice on my current circumstance. I am an FMG with good board scores. After close to 2 years of being in an IM program, I was forced to resign because of performance issues, that were linked to family and personal issues I was having. All those issues are taken care of now and I highlighted that in my PS. i didnt end up getting credit for PGY-2. And I havent been succesful in getting a vacant 2nd yr spot yet. I am looking to reapply in IM, this upcoming match cycle, and had the following questions.

Sorry to hear about your troubles.

1)Considering that I have been in residency for two years, do I have less chance to matching and starting over because of funding issues? Is it appropriate to ask on the interviews whether they would consider me for a 2nd yr spot?

Yes you have less of a chance, but not because of funding issues, rather, because you were essentially kicked out of another residency program for poor performance. If you do get an interview, it's not unreasonable to ask if they'll start you as a PGY2, but don't be upset if the answer is no.

FWIW, my residency program had a policy of starting all "transfer" residents (about 1/year the years I was paying attention) for 3-6 months at 1 PGY level below where they should have been. if they did well during that time, they advanced to their regular PGY level but had to do additional time on the backend to finish the program. If they didn't do well, they finished out the year at that level and did an entire extra year.

So if you were to get a spot in my program, you'd be repeating at least 6 months of your intern year, and have at least an extra 6 months after the rest of your class graduated, to finish up.

2) I have strong faculty member LORs from my previous residency but my PD letter is not the best, he mentions some positive attributes but has several subjective statements that definitely do not help me, highlighting that I had core competency deficiencies and struggles . In some aspect, it looks suspicious to apply without a PD letter, but his letter will definitely not help me in gathering interviews. Is it better to exclude this letter from my application? Any advice would be apprecciated.

The only thing that will be more harmful to your app than this PD LOR is not having a PD LOR. If I'm reviewing your app, and there's no PD LOR, I'm going to assume that's because you murdered him/her and managed to get away with it.