Just to reiterate what's already been stated. There is a lot of talk about PM&R becoming more competitive, especially when you look at this:
http://residency.wustl.edu/Choosing/SpecDesc/Pages/PhysicalMedicine.aspx
You can see that in 2013, only 89% of US seniors matched, which puts PM&R on par with ophthalmology, right...?
No. Obviously, your average physiatry applicant has lower stats than your average ophthalmology applicant, so even though the competitiveness is increasing, it'll be a while before it's truly "competitive."
Here's my advice if you want to get into PM&R without sweating too much:
- Be the kind of person people want to work with; don't be an arrogant prick.
- Pass your stuff.
- For step 1, if you land around the 50% percentile, you can expect to get interviews at about half the places you apply. So, let's say you get a 225-230 and want 10 interview offers, apply to 20 programs. If your stats are lower, apply to more programs, and if your stats are higher, you can afford to apply to fewer.
As for choosing a school, it's kind of personal. To me, debt matters, so in general, I'd choose a place with more financial aid (if that's an option) and with a lower cost of living.
Other things that I wish I'd thought about:
- is there free parking?
- Will you have to move a lot during your M3 and M4 years for your clinicals or can you do all your rotations at your local hospital? Some schools, believe it or not, don't have enough clinical spots for everyone to stay locally... and
not every school as a physiatry elective.
- Is there affordable housing nearby?
- How cold does it get?
- Are lectures recorded and can you watch from the comfort of your home?
- How much time off do you get in your 4th year for interviews? Or do you have to take time off from a rotation? This is really important. My school gave me a huge chunk of time off to schedule as I wanted, some for boards and some for interviews. Other people on the interview trail had to take pathology or something with a relatively light schedule (they still had assignments though) in months when they wanted to be able to schedule interviews. I had 6 weeks (not including 3 more weeks for Xmas) where I had absolutely no duties. I ended up being off for 9 weeks straight in Late Nov - Early Jan...
- What kind of interesting electives are available during 3rd and 4th year? It's really helpful when you need a break at the end of 4th year to be able to schedule 4 weeks of "Teaching Elective."
Now, would you rather do 4 weeks of this:
http://som.georgetown.edu/medicaleducation/curriculum/electives/Departments/73991.html or some hard surgery in the last few months of your senior year?
Think hard about practical stuff.
Good luck.
