High number of unfilled positions????

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doc_3_16

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I'm in that boat of excited people who just found out they matched. I can't help but wondering if the high number of unfilled spots can be correlated to competitiveness. On the interview trail, programs were ranting and raving about the nummber of applicants, yet we have this high of a number of unfilled spots. What are your thoughts?
 
I'm in that boat of excited people who just found out they matched. I can't help but wondering if the high number of unfilled spots can be correlated to competitiveness. On the interview trail, programs were ranting and raving about the nummber of applicants, yet we have this high of a number of unfilled spots. What are your thoughts?

I was wondering the same thing. The high number of unfilled spots seems very strange. This gets me to wondering about which programs didn't fill... Some more big names like last year?
 
I think a few biggies got a little excited about the candidate pool and didn't rank enough. Probably compounded by the extreme number of applications and interviews per candidate. Seems like everyone got 20 interviews and went on 15. All this talk about such a competitive year, and look what happened. 😕
 
I think a few biggies got a little excited about the candidate pool and didn't rank enough. Probably compounded by the extreme number of applications and interviews per candidate. Seems like everyone got 20 interviews and went on 15. All this talk about such a competitive year, and look what happened. 😕
Definitely agree. I think everyone ranked the same group of great candidates, and some programs will end up having run through their lists.
 
Where exactly can you get this information from?
 
You can't say which places were unfilled (just reported by region now, and "illegal" for specifics later) There is a link off the nrmp site saying

PGY-1 Positions:
West: Offered 35 Unfilled 0
Central: Offered 193 Unfilled 7
South: Offered 248 Unfilled 2
Northeast: Offered 99 Unfilled 5
Total: Offered 575 Unfilled 14

Advanced:
West: Offered 177 Unfilled 4
Central: Offered 120 Unfilled 9
South: Offered 85 Unfilled 0
Northeast: Offered 381 Unfilled 25
Total: Offered 763 Unfilled 38

To me the interesting thing is ratio of spots to open spots is around psych and pm&r.

The places I went seemed to be interviewing about 8-10 people per spot. If most of the top applicants went to 15 interviews, I can imagine that would leave a few good programs without people. I sure am glad not to be scrambling anyways.
 
I'm curious as well.


Anesthesiology: Western region: 35-Filled 0-Unfilled
PGY-1 Central region: 193-Filled 7-Unfilled
Southern region: 248-Filled 2-Unfilled
Northeastern region: 99-Filled 5-Unfilled
Total PGY-1 postions 575-Filled 14-Unfilled

Anesthesiology: Western region: 177-Filled 4-Unfilled
PGY-2 Central region: 120-Filled 9-Unfilled
Southern region: 85-Filled 0-Unfilled
Northeastern region: 381-Filled 25-Unfilled
Total PGY-2 postions 763-Filled 38-Unfilled

1286/1338 = 96.1% Fill Rate
 
Anesthesiology: Western region: 35-Filled 0-Unfilled
PGY-1 Central region: 193-Filled 7-Unfilled
Southern region: 248-Filled 2-Unfilled
Northeastern region: 99-Filled 5-Unfilled
Total PGY-1 postions 575-Filled 14-Unfilled

Anesthesiology: Western region: 177-Filled 4-Unfilled
PGY-2 Central region: 120-Filled 9-Unfilled
Southern region: 85-Filled 0-Unfilled
Northeastern region: 381-Filled 25-Unfilled
Total PGY-2 postions 763-Filled 38-Unfilled

youc all that a high number.. when i was in medical school. there were like 500 unfilled positions.. you could take your pick.. in fact i think in like 1996 0r 7 there were something like 5 US seniors in the whole country who said.. I think ill do anesthesiology.. Thats how bad it was.
 
youc all that a high number.. when i was in medical school. there were like 500 unfilled positions.. you could take your pick.. in fact i think in like 1996 0r 7 there were something like 5 US seniors in the whole country who said.. I think ill do anesthesiology.. Thats how bad it was.

i start my ca-1 in July. to the above response, i've always wondered, why was there such a big shift to anesthesia? why did us grad first not want to do it and now they do? i'm glad i'm doing the field, but i guess i dont know much about the history of anesthesia and the match. good luck thursday. some of you guys will be with me in a year!
 
youc all that a high number.. when i was in medical school. there were like 500 unfilled positions.. you could take your pick.. in fact i think in like 1996 0r 7 there were something like 5 US seniors in the whole country who said.. I think ill do anesthesiology.. Thats how bad it was.

Considering my advisor (who suggested I have FP as a backup since I likely wouldn't match 😎 ) thought there may not be ANY spots for the scramble this year...yeah, 52 is quite a few.
 
I could never confirm this, but when I was interviewing one of my resident tour guides told me that at his program, they had such a good experience with the "scramble" candidates the one year they accidentally didn't fill, that they contemplated deliberately making their list "short" next year in order to catch more ophtho, plastics, etc scramblers with better credentials than their "within-the-match" residents! 😱
 
I could never confirm this, but when I was interviewing one of my resident tour guides told me that at his program, they had such a good experience with the "scramble" candidates the one year they accidentally didn't fill, that they contemplated deliberately making their list "short" next year in order to catch more ophtho, plastics, etc scramblers with better credentials than their "within-the-match" residents! 😱

sounds like not a good idea....
 
Without being too intentionally vague, some of what jennyboo says is at least partially true. I can think of some programs that keep some spots intentionally out the match but will fill them with scramblers and outside-the-match types. Though they don't usually intentionally not fill, they just keep several spots outside the match. Though i guess that's really semantics.
 
can someone post which advanced positions are unfilled after match day? or, does anyone know how to find which programs have advanced spots (CA-1)?
 
The unfilled percentage is quite high. I hope that no programs sent in the wrong rank list like U of Kentucky last year. :scared:
 
Consider that the quite a few of those spots are unfilled spots at programs that traditionally no one in their right mind would rank (there are four I can think of) and some of those advanced spots are being held aside purposefully outside the match, but still will be listed as offered (example five advanced spots offered this year by a program in the south, but only 3 candidates ranked for them).

That was the trend I noticed when I was a resident and involved with recruiting.
 
4% unfilled is high? Does anyone know what it's been for Anesthesiology in recent years?
 
It's pretty amazing that last year there were only 24 unfilled positions... and that like 6 of those were from the UofK doing some non-political flip-flopping.

Any guesses for the 4 unmatched Advanced spots out West? It can't be UCLA (no advanced spots). I doubt that UCSF didn't fill after their overhauled interview process this year. I think that VM was an anomaly last year, and it's hard to imagine Stanford not filling...

Anybody hear any rumors yet?
 
Someone has posted that MGH has 3-4 unfilled spots. I am guessing that a lot of the competitive programs ranked only very few candidates thinking that the number of applicants have increased and hence the overall competitiveness of the field. They were wrong. I believe that the number of applicants are comparable to last year but each applicant applied to more programs and went to more interviews this year. There are 52 positions unfilled this year which is more than the previous couple of years.
 
In regards to the unfilled spots in the west, don't forget that there are more than California, Oregon, and Washington states in the western region.
 
In regards to the unfilled spots in the west, don't forget that there are more than California, Oregon, and Washington states in the western region.

you're right. It's like everything west of a line drawn down the country from the eastern border of Montana. So this includes NM, U Colorado, AZ and all. But, unless I'm mistaken it was only UCSF and VM that didn't match in the Western region last year...
 
The other ones I have heard about are:

4 MGH
1 JHU
2 Cornell
1 Dartmouth
 
This might be a stupid question but, why on earth would any program want to recruit rejects from other fields. I don't mean people who have decided they didn't like the specialty they practiced and decided they want to switch to anesthesia.

I'm talking about candidates that don't get a spot in surg, ENT, ortho, ect. If these people scramble into an anesthesia spot it seems like they are just trying to get into something and anesthesia is the closest thing to surgery. I'm well aware that these candidates are extremely smart with great LOR, grades and board scores but, personally I don't understand why any program would want a resident that doesn't really want to be an anesthesiologist.
 
The other ones I have heard about are:

4 MGH
1 JHU
2 Cornell
1 Dartmouth

MGH wasn't the best for for me, but I really liked the program at Dartmouth...I wonder if the locale was the limiting factor there...this whole match thing is quite interesting....come on Thursday!!
 
The rumors you post about unfilled positions are true. You will all know on Thursday.

BC
 
This might be a stupid question but, why on earth would any program want to recruit rejects from other fields. I don't mean people who have decided they didn't like the specialty they practiced and decided they want to switch to anesthesia.

I'm talking about candidates that don't get a spot in surg, ENT, ortho, ect. If these people scramble into an anesthesia spot it seems like they are just trying to get into something and anesthesia is the closest thing to surgery. I'm well aware that these candidates are extremely smart with great LOR, grades and board scores but, personally I don't understand why any program would want a resident that doesn't really want to be an anesthesiologist.

I agree ... I'd also like to know the rationale behind that.
 
I thought that it was very interresting that there were no unfilled spots for OB/GYN,. Even more interesting was the huge number unfilled for gas.
 
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