I know there were 11 unfilled spots this year. Anyone know/remember vaguely how this compares to previous years?
How many unfilled spots last year?
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mid to high 20s last year....the average over the last 5 years is 45 slots.
2008
2007
2006
2005
# Categorical/ Advanced positions available for U.S. Seniors2007
2006
2005
1073
1059
1050
1046
% U.S. Seniors matched*1059
1050
1046
98
97
91
91
# Unfilled Categorical/ Advanced Positions97
91
91
28
57
54
43
#Unmatched U.S. seniors57
54
43
13
20
67
68
20
67
68
http://residency.wustl.edu/medadmin...261eb94f5488055786256f8f0074bbe5?OpenDocument
This is from a super groovy chart seen by all those who do the WUSTL.
Well, not really, but some dude posted this on the other thread.
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Or there are the same # of spots, residencies are taking the same #s of FMGs, and there are just a few additional (eg. 10) USAMGs who are worthy of matching.
Seeing that there are only 11 unfilled spots has already made me contemplate that I will be going to #2, or #3, ... Just sensing that it was more competitive this year.
It doesn't take much of an increase of good applicants who are willing to travel to take the number of unfilled spots from 25 to 11.
Ugh!!
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According to the NRMP's resultsanddata2008.pdf file, there were 56 unfilled spots last year. Not sure why there's a discrepancy between that and the WUSTL site. The other years match up exactly.
is there a possibility that there were not 11 unfilled spots, and instead 11 programs that went unfilled (each potentially having more than 1 unfilled spot)?
my friend and i thought that this would be a more plausible explanation after comparing the data from nrmp today with washington's stats from prior years.
my friend and i thought that this would be a more plausible explanation after comparing the data from nrmp today with washington's stats from prior years.
People are starting realize that it doesn't matter what their parents want them to do. They also realize that prestige is not everything in life. Me? I want a stable job, where I can stay in one office and talk to my patients from 8 AM to 4:30 PM. I want to make good money, but I also don't need $400,000 a year to be happy. I want to spend time with my family and not be harassed all weekend long. I want to have options. I want to know my patients. I want to control my schedule. I want to lean how to relieve emotional distress and suffering. I want to be a psychiatrist.
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As was the year when I was Chief Resident. The program supposedly had its best year of applicants that year. This shows maybe there's a trend with more people going into psychiatry.
I saw an article in the APA newspaper a few months ago showing the public perception of Psychiatry has improved in the past years. I was also considering if any tv shows or movies have made any of these changes. For example, I heard when ER (the show) came out, applications into ER residencies skyrocketed. I remember one of my friends bemoaning it, mentioning that he had wanted to do ER before the show came out, and now he had to suffer because of the trend that he said will die when the show dies.
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These are nice sounding ideals. And if these are your reasons for choosing psychiatry, it sounds wonderful. But we don't know yet if there is a trend, because one year's data is not enough to label a trend (unless across medicine, there are just more applicants). And don't people usually wait to speculate about the causes of trends until some time has passed? I would imagine that different people have very different reasons for choosing psychiatry. Interestingly there was another recent thread stating that psychiatry has the highest divorce rate of all medical specialties. I don't know if this happens during residency, but if that statistic is correct then I'd imagine not EVERYONE is so eager to spend more time with their family; some people might actually want to get away from their families, just to be brutally honest here. Freud himself was not happily married I heard somewhere... On another matter that you mentioned entirely, I personally never even thought about that 8 to 4:30 or being in one office thing myself at all. Anyway I'm just saying, to each his own, and it's wonderful that you know what YOU want, but I think it is premature to be speculating about trends or their causes. At least it won't help us understand the real reason behind the decreased number of open spots.
I have no idea about divorce rates in different specialites but I could imagine that
1) unstable people trying to figure themselves out get interested in psychiatry and pursue further training. . . and then later get divorced. (Ever seen the movie "Happiness" -not that movies are real life, but it's a great really creepy movie).
2) that psychiatrists are more self-aware of dysfunction and more willing to get divorced.
This has nothing to do with divorce - especially since only a few places (if any) justly recognize same sex marriage - but I met a lot of gay/lesbian people in psych on the interview trail. It was interesting.
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I love it! You have responded to my post advising against speculating about the causes of unproven trends by speculating about the causes of a different unproven trend! This is what makes SDN so well worth each and every one of the USMLE World Step II questions I should be doing but am not each time I check this site! Now there is a trend that needs no proving or speculation. Yay!
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Looks like Yale went unfilled (again) this year. Someone posted a list on usmleforum.com--don't have any idea how accurate it is though.
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Isn't there also an unfilled triple board position, 3 med/psych positions, and 1 family medicine/psych position?
I think that in addition to looking at this year's unfilled psych positions compared to last year's, what would also be interesting would be to compare family medicine open spots. Last year there were 249 unfilled FM spots, this year there are 224. That's a much less significant difference than with psych.
Do we have access yet to information about how many US applicants applied for the match? I seem to recall hearing that there was a government push in the last few years to get state schools to admit more applicants to address the shortage of primary care doctors. I could definitely be wrong about this. But here is an article from the Chicago Tribune about how some new med schools are in the works, and many existing med schools are increasing enrollment, with the goal of increasing the number of primary care docs in the country. (It also mentions that the total number of residency slots is capped by the government.):
http://archives.chicagotribune.com/2009/mar/10/health/chi-ap-medicalschoolboom
The problem with this article is that it only cites enrollment statistics starting with 2008. So until the NRMP tells us how many US grads applied this year we won't know (although it's been going up annually for several years), but to me it makes sense that if there has been a spike in the number of US applicants, they are just going to add to the crush of really competitive fields first, and then second apply to fields that typically have something of a margin, like psych. A lot won't match and will have to take a year off. Those competitive fields have very few unfilled spots annually, so they won't notice the extra people trying to get in, but in psych, we care about that margin, so we do. Anyway, what NO ONE'S going to do is willingly go into primary care.
Like I said I'm must making guesses here.
I think that in addition to looking at this year's unfilled psych positions compared to last year's, what would also be interesting would be to compare family medicine open spots. Last year there were 249 unfilled FM spots, this year there are 224. That's a much less significant difference than with psych.
Do we have access yet to information about how many US applicants applied for the match? I seem to recall hearing that there was a government push in the last few years to get state schools to admit more applicants to address the shortage of primary care doctors. I could definitely be wrong about this. But here is an article from the Chicago Tribune about how some new med schools are in the works, and many existing med schools are increasing enrollment, with the goal of increasing the number of primary care docs in the country. (It also mentions that the total number of residency slots is capped by the government.):
http://archives.chicagotribune.com/2009/mar/10/health/chi-ap-medicalschoolboom
The problem with this article is that it only cites enrollment statistics starting with 2008. So until the NRMP tells us how many US grads applied this year we won't know (although it's been going up annually for several years), but to me it makes sense that if there has been a spike in the number of US applicants, they are just going to add to the crush of really competitive fields first, and then second apply to fields that typically have something of a margin, like psych. A lot won't match and will have to take a year off. Those competitive fields have very few unfilled spots annually, so they won't notice the extra people trying to get in, but in psych, we care about that margin, so we do. Anyway, what NO ONE'S going to do is willingly go into primary care.
Like I said I'm must making guesses here.
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haha. . . I was hoping someone would jump on my post, but no one took the bait (as of yet)!
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I hear there's a trend toward lower board scores since the invention of the Internet...😉
