I dual applied into two things that are not right for me.... how do I reapply?

[ConfusedMedStudent]

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Hi,

I'm seeking advice from folks who switched after completing a year of residency recently. I applied in peds and path. Two different fields I know but I found things that I liked in both while knowing they lacked some things as well. Then, after turning in my residency apps, I did 3 Family Medicine rotations that I loved. It was everything that I had desperately been looking for in med school and in a career. It is too late for me to interview for FM programs now so I'm thinking about how I can reapply after intern year... I also don't know if I should choose Peds or Path and which would make it easier for me to switch. I love spending time with kids but I don't like inpatient medicine or super sick children. I like research and mechanical work and lifestyle is important to me which is why path also made it into the picture. In FM, I feel like I can get all the things I loved from both specialties while having adult medicine, advocacy, global and public health, research, which are all the reasons I went to med school in the first place. If I could go back 8 weeks, I would have applied into FM and never doubted my decision. Unfortunately I had my realization 6 weeks after ERAS opened.

If anyone has switched in residency, could you please go over how you got new LORs, talked to your PD, any difficulties that arose, what pushback you got, and if you got plenty of interviews the second time around?

Thanks so much.

 

[GoSpursGo]

I would suggest that based on what you describe that you give peds a shot. A peds residency is often quite inpatient heavy, but that has nothing to do with what life like a general pediatrician looks like afterwards. Most pediatricians exclusively see outpatient, pretty healthy kids. Advocacy and global/public health are also pretty easy to incorporate into life as a general pediatrician. Frankly, the fact that you somehow wound up applying to two completely unrelated fields leads me to believe that you may not really know exactly what you want, and it would be a shame to completely change your plan now and then regret it again in another 8 weeks.

I'm biased, but my advice is that you rank the peds programs top, give it a real shot during your first 3 months, and then if you decide that you really want to switch reapply. But if you're 100% positive that you want to do FM, then if you have any interest in your home program you might reach out to them for guidance--if they like you, it's possible they would still consider you for an interview at this point. If that's a no-go, then honestly you may be better off withdrawing from the match and delaying graduation a year. It does neither you nor your eventual program any good for you to match to a specialty you don't want to be in and scramble to find days off during intern year to go on interviews, let alone the difficulty of obtaining LORs.

 

[Gastrapathy]

isn’t the deadline Nov 30? Apply now. Tell your story and be ready to SOAP. It’s FP so it’s not the most competitive. Just go for it

 

[Merely]

You can get into FM still just go for it

 

[wysdoc]

Hi,

I'm seeking advice from folks who switched after completing a year of residency recently. I applied in peds and path. Two different fields I know but I found things that I liked in both while knowing they lacked some things as well. Then, after turning in my residency apps, I did 3 Family Medicine rotations that I loved. It was everything that I had desperately been looking for in med school and in a career. It is too late for me to interview for FM programs now so I'm thinking about how I can reapply after intern year... I also don't know if I should choose Peds or Path and which would make it easier for me to switch. I love spending time with kids but I don't like inpatient medicine or super sick children. I like research and mechanical work and lifestyle is important to me which is why path also made it into the picture. In FM, I feel like I can get all the things I loved from both specialties while having adult medicine, advocacy, global and public health, research, which are all the reasons I went to med school in the first place. If I could go back 8 weeks, I would have applied into FM and never doubted my decision. Unfortunately I had my realization 6 weeks after ERAS opened.

If anyone has switched in residency, could you please go over how you got new LORs, talked to your PD, any difficulties that arose, what pushback you got, and if you got plenty of interviews the second time around?

Thanks so much.

Peds in private practice has very little inpatient work, and you still deal with the families in parent contact.
Path residencies go straight in to the Pathology topic (there is not a general medical intern year) so if you switched you would be re-applying and starting over as a PGY-1 in Family Practice.

 

[abc2019]

There were TONS of FM spots in the SOAP this year. So apply now and sent LOI and you probably can still match in FM. If not, you have great chance to soap into FM. Good luck!

 

[ConfusedMedStudent]

Hi,

I did turn in a few applications to FM programs but most of them are saying they are full. I don't mind "repeating" a year. I am more concerned about trying to match again/switching specialties are that not working out. I have solid board scores, no red flags, lots of research, and had very strong LORs. I had 54 interview offers this round. But even with that, I am worried that if I tried to switch specialties, I would meet resistance and not match the second time.

I had taught kids before med school so I naturally thought I should apply into peds but working with sick kids is different than teaching them how to read. In theory peds and FM are similar but I really do like my patient interactions with adults and the elderly. Its a different kind of connection that I would miss out on. TBH if I only saw kids all the time I don't know how satisfied I would feel. I also enjoy OB and women's health and office based procedures. I had not had a FM rotation for 1.5 years by the time I applied this round so I did not have a recent rotation to confirm how much I liked it. Now that I have experienced it again, I keep thinking about how happy I could have been in this interview cycle if I had just figured it out earlier.

 

[NotAProgDirector]

You might have problems matching next year:
1. If you match into a residency now, you'll have a job during next year's recruitment cycle. You can't just take whatever days you want off. You'll need to ask your program for permission, and this might require lots of schedule changes. It much harder than when you're a 4th year student and your work isn't critical.
2. You will use up one year of funding, and be short for an FM residency.
3. You will likely be required to sign a PGY-2 contract before match day, so you will need to give up your spot prior to the match, leaving you with some chance of ending up with nothing. Programs aren't being "mean", the program might want to increase it's match quota to get another intern to replace your spot, or they might look for someone to transfer in, and waiting until after the match is often too late for both of those options.

Do you have a home FM program? If so, you need to talk to them now. Programs that are "full" may find a spot if someone from your home program reaches out.

Alternatively, you could rank nothing and get an FM spot in SOAP. You'll be super competitive in SOAP, especially if you have a letter from your home FM program explaining the situation.

 

[mvenus929]

You should talk to someone at your own school. FM isn't super competitive, so you stand a chance, but you need to actually talk with someone who knows the FM field and can go to bat for you, if this is something you want to do. Then, if you don't get an interviews during the season, you can make the choice to try to SOAP into a FM position, or attempt to match into Peds or Path (if given the choice, I'd go for Peds... most FM residencies don't prepare you very well for identifying sick kids, and at least you'll get some experience whereas with path, you won't have much in the way of transferable skills).

 

[hallowmann]

I'd apply to a bunch of FM programs now and see what you can get. Interviews for FM go into Jan, and a lot of people cancel at the end after scheduling too many interviews. As long as you make it obvious to programs that you're open for coming to interviews on shortish notice, you'll probably get at least a few invites.

Worst case scenario, as others have said, you SOAP into an FM program after not ranking any Path or Peds programs.