how do I know which residencies are competitive?

[amarettomist]

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A little about myself: TX school, step 1 242, 50/50 A/Bs on rotations

Hoping to stay in TX for residency but was told will need to apply and do an away out of state (am already doing an away in TX + one at home), so I'm starting to look at programs but have very little sense of what I'm looking for. My main problem is I don't know if a program I'm looking at is highly competitive or not so great. I'm looking for places in between those... FRIEDA database is of little help since most programs seem to have terribly similar stats.

Where can I go to find out if a program is highly competitive/decent/not so decent?

 

[RafaTech]

Where can I go to find out if a program is highly competitive/decent/not so decent?

The most competitive programs are generally the "big name" EM programs. Only problem is that there are a lot of "big name" EM programs and they located all across the country. I think you would get more responses if you said what region(s) of the country you were looking to apply to.

And there is no real place you can go to to get that type of information. I would suggest talking to the program director at your school and asking their opinion. They would know best about a program's reputation. Hope that helps.

 

[gman33]

Without going into specific programs, geography plays a big part.
Places where young people like to live are going to be competitive.
Major cities, west coast, beaches, snowboarding, that type of stuff.

If those things aren't important to you, there are tons of solid programs that won't be that competitive.

 

[da8s0859q]

Hoping to stay in TX for residency but was told will need to apply and do an away out of state (am already doing an away in TX + one at home)

Just curious about the context of this. Do you mean you had an advisor tell you that the only way a non-Texas program was going to rank you highly was if you do an out-of-state away?

Agree w/ above as far as "competitive" programs. Cali, places like Vandy which have great reps, and other outdoorsy or geographically blessed places seem like they're more competitive than not.

 

[amarettomist]

To add, I prefer to stay away from the New England area and northern states (above Kansas, except Oregon and Washington state) just because I don't like cold weather.

 

[amarettomist]

Just curious about the context of this. Do you mean you had an advisor tell you that the only way a non-Texas program was going to rank you highly was if you do an out-of-state away?

Yes, that is definitely the impression I've gotten from advisors and my dean. Programs are suspicious of Texas students because they do tend to stay in Texas, so in order to prove my willingness/intent to leave Texas, I need to do an out of state away.

 

[RPedigo]

Yes, that is definitely the impression I've gotten from advisors and my dean. Programs are suspicious of Texas students because they do tend to stay in Texas, so in order to prove my willingness/intent to leave Texas, I need to do an out of state away.

If you're pro-warm-weather and want to do an away rotation, I'd consider California programs as well. You're a competitive applicant, and doing an away rotation could help you evaluate if you'd like to live in California for at least 3-4 years. All the programs in California are excellent; it just depends if you prefer a county hospital environment or an academic center environment (or places like Stanford or UCLA, which are hybrids of the two). If you have questions about any California programs in general I'd be happy to let you know.

 

[member11223344]

I don't know that I'd call stanford a "hybrid," any more than other "academic" cali programs.

 

[RPedigo]

I don't know that I'd call stanford a "hybrid," any more than other "academic" cali programs.

I suppose that would be the case if you did not consider Santa Clara Valley Medical Center a county facility, which they spend a significant amount of time rotating through. I was just offering programs that do have a significant part of their rotations through a county facility. (Which UCLA does as well, at Olive View.)

 

[winkleweizen]

I figured you could get some very rough idea of how competitive a program was by the number of FMGs and DOs that matched their over the years (SHut it, dont want to go into the debate, just admit it).

 

[member11223344]

I suppose that would be the case if you did not consider Santa Clara Valley Medical Center a county facility, which they spend a significant amount of time rotating through. I was just offering programs that do have a significant part of their rotations through a county facility. (Which UCLA does as well, at Olive View.)

my only point was that within california, stanford and ucla are not "THE" hybrid programs. there are for sure super county programs (USC, highland, harbor, +/- davis) and there are super academic programs (ucsd) and then there's kind of everyone else, which, are an amalgam of county and academic (eg ucsf with san francisco general or and loma linda with riverside county and LLUMC). on the whole, i think, stanford (that spends a total of 5 months at santa clara valley throughout all of residency--as compared to 17 months of kaiser/stanford time) is much more on the academic/community spectrum than "county hybrid," when compared to some of these other places.

 

[RPedigo]

my only point was that within california, stanford and ucla are not "THE" hybrid programs. there are for sure super county programs (USC, highland, harbor, +/- davis) and there are super academic programs (ucsd) and then there's kind of everyone else, which, are an amalgam of county and academic (eg ucsf with san francisco general or and loma linda with riverside county and LLUMC). on the whole, i think, stanford (that spends a total of 4 months at santa clara valley throughout all of residency) is much more on the academic/community spectrum (if you include extensive kaiser time) than "hybrid," when compared to some of these other places.

Point well taken. I didn't mean for my list to be all inclusive, but I agree with everything you said. Looking back on my previous comment, it wasn't as clear as it could have been.

 

[hadokenny]

In my opinion, if the program has at least one of the three characteristis below, it's going to be competitive (ie 230+ steps, decent amt of honors during 3rd yr + EM rotations, and strong SLORs for interviews.)

1. Has a reputation of being "bad ass". Highland, USC+LAC, Maricopa, Cook County, etc.
2. Well-known academic centers. UCSF, Mass Gen, Baylor, etc.
3. Desirable locations. Most programs in california, Denver, etc.

 

[vengaaqui]

There's a great sticky on choosing a residency program that has a list of well regarded programs and several discussion threads that are plus or minus on identifying "the top" programs which in my mind would partially correlate with competitiveness. There are many fantastic programs that are not on this list, but it should give you some ideas. Agreed that places in desirable areas like California, Oregon, Chicago, etc are going to be more competitive although I would imagine some of the midwest programs below are just as hard to get interviews at (but don't know since I've only been an applicant in the process, not on the "inside"). I've pasted it below but it's a direct quote from Desperado's post:

"Programs that all would agree have great reputations (deserved or not) year after year (in no apparent order):

Pittsburgh, Indiana, Hennepin, UCLA-Harbor, UCLA-Olive View, Vanderbilt, UNC, Carolinas, Denver, Cincinnatti.

Programs that seem to frequently crop up on lists of top programs
(in no apparent order)
Arizona, Maricopa, UNM, Cook County, USC, Highland, Christiana, Both programs in Florida (Feel free to edit this with the names Quinn, I know you know them,) Emory, OHSU, UC-Davis, UCSD."

To me, you seem competitive. Having gone through the trail and interviewed at a lot of great places, if I was in your shoes and wanted an away out of TX in a warm area, I would be looking at California programs like UC Davis and Highland as someone mentioned above, Denver, Maricopa, U New Mexico, Carolinas, UNC, Vanderbilt, etc. I have no first hand knowledge of those aways, but I did hear good feedback from people who rotated at Carolinas for whatever that's worth. Good luck!

 

[Apollyon]

As to the thesis of this thread, for the OP, turn it around - how about "how do I know which residencies are not competitive?"

In EM, there are no non competitive residencies. Almost every year, the Ponce program in Puerto Rico doesn't fill, but that is a special case (as one must be fluent in Spanish to go there).

However, the Metropolitan program in NYC was pretty bad 10 years ago, but they've turned it around. At the same time, being "bad", they still turned out good EM docs.

At the same time, I think that your use of "competitive" doesn't have the same meaning as people commonly think, as per "highly competitive or not so great". That phrase seems to connote "highly competitive" is "good", and that conflation is not necessarily accurate.

 

[Dane07MD]

If you need more insight, I can offer some words from experience (aways and interview history). Just send me a private message and I can offer my thoughts,