Home residency program

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HopelessMS

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If one knows that one will not be happy at one's home residency program because of one's experiences with attendings in the said specialty during 3rd year clerkship and 4th year rotations, is it a bad idea to not apply to the home residency program for ERAS? Self inflicted harm and shooting self in the foot?

Also, heard through the grapevine from a few current residents that the home program is kind of malignant.

If so how does one explain to one's ERAS advisor who is an attending (never worked with them in 3rd/4th year) in the residency program that one will not be applying if it should come up during ERAS advising meetings?

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There is benefit from applying to your home program even if you don't intend to go there. Home students are usually interviewed first, so it's a good practice interview for you.

Whether you rank them is completely up to you, but you have to ask yourself if you'd rather match at your home program and eventually be a practicing physician, or not match at all and have to reapply next year (or try to SOAP). You also don't have to tell anyone you didn't rank the program (though obviously they will know if you don't match...).
 
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I'm not there yet, but I don't think I would do it. How would it hurt you to apply, interview if offered the opportunity, and then rank it low, depending on what your other options are?

Until you have something else, I'd turn the question around and ask how bad of an idea would it be to not apply to the home residency program and later find yourself unmatched? That's how bad an idea it might turn out to be!
 
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If one knows that one will not be happy at one's home residency program because of one's experiences with attendings in the said specialty during 3rd year clerkship and 4th year rotations, is it a bad idea to not apply to the home residency program for ERAS? Self inflicted harm and shooting self in the foot?

Also, heard through the grapevine from a few current residents that the home program is kind of malignant.

If so how does one explain to one's ERAS advisor who is an attending (never worked with them in 3rd/4th year) in the residency program that one will not be applying if it should come up during ERAS advising meetings?

Seems like a situation ripe for unintended consequences.

As mentioned, there's the obvious possibility that you don't interview there and/or rank them and you go unmatched.

There's also the possibility of someone's feelings getting hurt that you're not applying to your home program and spreading negative chatter about you, both internally or externally.

I would just apply there, go through the motions if you they offer an interview and then rank them last if you decide you really don't want to go there.

Tangent: your experiences as a nameless/faceless med student may not be what your resident experience will be like. I've seen instances where the staff took way more ownership of the residents than they did the med students. The staff will work with residents every day for years; they will likely not work with any random med student more than a handful of times and thus may not put a lot of effort into those interactions.

I trained in a place for residency where the attendings of one section showed crazy favoritism to their 1 year fellows. The attending/fellow relationship was daily for a year whereas residents only rotated through 1-2x a year so those attendings didn't give a crap about the residents.
 
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Generally agree with above--you should interview regardless of whether you want to stay at your home program. You can always choose to rank them last or not at all.
 
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Definitely apply. Not worth the risk of alienating anyone and it’s good interviewing practice. You get a free guaranteed interview you don’t have to travel for and minimal stress since you don’t want to be there.

Just rank them last or not at all depending on how you feel about them in a few months when you’re certifying your rank list.

You may also want to talk with the residents about their experiences more candidly later on if you’re maybe considering ranking them. No program is perfect and there’s the old “better the devil you know” adage. Every other program will have issues; you just may not know what those are until you get there. If there are particular issues with your home program, find ways to ask about those issues with other programs so you can find the right fit for you.
 
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Definitely apply. Not worth the risk of alienating anyone and it’s good interviewing practice. You get a free guaranteed interview you don’t have to travel for and minimal stress since you don’t want to be there.

Just rank them last or not at all depending on how you feel about them in a few months when you’re certifying your rank list.

You may also want to talk with the residents about their experiences more candidly later on if you’re maybe considering ranking them. No program is perfect and there’s the old “better the devil you know” adage. Every other program will have issues; you just may not know what those are until you get there. If there are particular issues with your home program, find ways to ask about those issues with other programs so you can find the right fit for you.
Are home program interviews guaranteed? I did not know that!
 
Are home program interviews guaranteed? I did not know that!
I’m sure there’s an exception, but traditionally yes they are. I’ve never heard of someone being denied one at their home program. Many may be courtesy interviews where they have no intention of ranking the student, but they will usually interview everyone.
 
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Are home program interviews guaranteed? I did not know that!
Pretty much guaranteed. Even if they have no intention of ranking you to match, your performance on interviews elsewhere reflects on the program. So they're still somewhat invested in helping you match elsewhere and will often give home students the early interview slots to give you some practice.
 
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Are home program interviews guaranteed? I did not know that!
In theory no, but in practice, many programs will interview any internal applicants, sometimes all on the same day; for example, my medical school held interview days for both the internal prelim applicants and for applicants to my specialty, which were not part of the normal interview cycle schedule.

You should apply to your home program and interview there, if only for the practice. You don't have to rank them. But the general advice is that you should only not rank a program if you think you'd be so miserable there that you'd consider dropping out. I know multiple people who considered not ranking their home program, ranked it last, and ended up matching there. I am fairly confident all of them were happy to have ranked it (vs SOAPing) in retrospect.
 
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I’m sure there’s an exception, but traditionally yes they are. I’ve never heard of someone being denied one at their home program. Many may be courtesy interviews where they have no intention of ranking the student, but they will usually interview everyone.

Pretty much guaranteed. Even if they have no intention of ranking you to match, your performance on interviews elsewhere reflects on the program. So they're still somewhat invested in helping you match elsewhere and will often give home students the early interview slots to give you some practice.

In theory no, but in practice, many programs will interview any internal applicants, sometimes all on the same day; for example, my medical school held interview days for both the internal prelim applicants and for applicants to my specialty, which were not part of the normal interview cycle schedule.

You should apply to your home program and interview there, if only for the practice. You don't have to rank them. But the general advice is that you should only not rank a program if you think you'd be so miserable there that you'd consider dropping out. I know multiple people who considered not ranking their home program, ranked it last, and ended up matching there. I am fairly confident all of them were happy to have ranked it (vs SOAPing) in retrospect.
Thank you all very much!!!

So now, with the supplemental ERAS becoming more widely used, and, with preference signaling being a component, how does signaling work with a guaranteed interview at a home program? Will the programs understand that the lack of a signal where an interview is a given is not an indication of a lack of interest? Or would failing to send that signal render an interview a total waste of time, other than for practice?
 
Thank you all very much!!!

So now, with the supplemental ERAS becoming more widely used, and, with preference signaling being a component, how does signaling work with a guaranteed interview at a home program? Will the programs understand that the lack of a signal where an interview is a given is not an indication of a lack of interest? Or would failing to send that signal render an interview a total waste of time, other than for practice?
This is question for your home PD. Personally I would understand the lack of a signal, but everyone will make their own conclusions.
 
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Students are told not to signal their home program. It's not expected at all -- in fact discouraged.
Is that true for all specialties?
I've heard/seen a chart that showed variation among specialties, i.e. GS still prefers signalling to home program.
Would greatly appreciate some clarity.
 
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I did not apply to my home program. Not that it wasn't good, just that I didn't want to stay in that city.

Did not hurt my ERAS at all. Matched at #1. You can use it as a practice interview if you want, but it is not necessary. I was open to the program during my Sub I that I loved the program but wanted to move away from the city. No hard feelings as far as I could tell, and it didn't hurt my Sub I recommendation letters.
 
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So now, with the supplemental ERAS becoming more widely used, and, with preference signaling being a component, how does signaling work with a guaranteed interview at a home program? Will the programs understand that the lack of a signal where an interview is a given is not an indication of a lack of interest? Or would failing to send that signal render an interview a total waste of time, other than for practice?
Our program specifically advises our students not to waste a signal on us. We do not use the token system for our own students!
 
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Save all the trouble of downloading it

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