Sleep is an interesting case. It used to be pretty competitive because you are competing with pulmonologists, psychiatrists, even internal medicine, family medicine and general pediatrics. That said, the process for applying to sleep changed drastically this year and they now use a Match system through the NRMP. According to this years statistics (Match Day was November 16), 21% of programs had unfilled spots (accounting for 12% of all the fellowship spots participating in the Match). 16% of all applicants (103 certified applications) went unmatched. My impression having gone through the process this year is that many programs did not interview enough candidates for the number of spots they were offering, especially when so many candidates I met were applying to 30 programs. I would suspect that there will be fewer and fewer unmatched spots as program directors become more savvy with the new process. It should also be noted that about 20% of the programs decided not to participate in the Match, and most of them filled their spots earlier for 2012 months ago.
- Erick
