Internship year and it's confusion

[craigkes]

---

Members don't see this ad.

I have a question regarding internship year for Anesthesia. I have tried searching through old threads and I have looked at the important links for commonly asked questions but I am still having some confusion. It is quite possible I have just overlooked it but I thought I would ask for some clarification.

Basically I want to do my internship year and my Anesth. residency all in the same town (not wanting to move my family twice and all). I have seen where some programs are 3 years in length and some are 4 years in length. Now I am assuming that those 4 year programs have the internship year plugged right in with the Anesth. program but what about the 3 year programs? Do I have to apply to internal medicine categorical spots in the same town, and interview seperatly at these spots? In theory does that mean I would have to interview at two places in the same town (if I were that lucky)? If so, how does ERAS work? Do I have to rank both the categorical and the Anesth. residency that I am interested in and then take a chance that I get both the categorical spot and the Anesth. residency in the same town? What a confusing mess. I just switched my battle plan to Anesthesiology with high hopes but this seems like a royal pain in the butt. Any information would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

 

[polkadotcap]

I have a question regarding internship year for Anesthesia. I have tried searching through old threads and I have looked at the important links for commonly asked questions but I am still having some confusion. It is quite possible I have just overlooked it but I thought I would ask for some clarification.

Basically I want to do my internship year and my Anesth. residency all in the same town (not wanting to move my family twice and all). I have seen where some programs are 3 years in length and some are 4 years in length. Now I am assuming that those 4 year programs have the internship year plugged right in with the Anesth. program but what about the 3 year programs? Do I have to apply to internal medicine categorical spots in the same town, and interview seperatly at these spots? In theory does that mean I would have to interview at two places in the same town (if I were that lucky)? If so, how does ERAS work? Do I have to rank both the categorical and the Anesth. residency that I am interested in and then take a chance that I get both the categorical spot and the Anesth. residency in the same town? What a confusing mess. I just switched my battle plan to Anesthesiology with high hopes but this seems like a royal pain in the butt. Any information would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

I'll explain my experience, I just completed interviewing and now am awaiting match day. I am couple's matching so I want to be in the same city as my husband for internship year. For that reason, if a given anesthesia program did not have an internship built in, I had to apply and interview at separate prelim medicine programs (or in some cities, transitional year programs). Yes, it means additional interviews and additional money spent on ERAS. You have to decide if it is truly worth it for you.

As for programs that offer some spots with a built in intern year and some spots that are only 3 years long, it depends. Some programs use the same rank list and basically ask you during the interview if you are more interested in their 3 or 4 year program. Most people recommended that I apply to BOTH 3 an 4 year spots to maximize my chances of matching there. So for those places I applied to both, made sure to emphasize that I REALLY wanted a 4 year spot, and interviewed for a medicine prelim as a back up. On ERAS you apply to ALL of these programs (it will cost lots of $$, no way around this). On the NRMP you will create a primary rank list and then a separate "supplemental" rank list for every 3 year anesthesia program you list. If you really dont want to move twice no matter what, you will likely have a bunch of supplemental lists like I do.

The way around all this mess is to apply to categorical programs only. There are a good number of them out there, but whether this is a good option for you kind of depends on how competitive you are, and where you want to move to, I would guess. For me, in the couple's match, I couldn't take any chances and just sucked it up, applied all over the place, interviewed a million times, and gained about 7 pounds from all the yummy free interview dinners 🙂 Hope this helps, I remember how confusing it seemed when I first looked into it all.

 

[nociceptor]

I have a question regarding internship year for Anesthesia. I have tried searching through old threads and I have looked at the important links for commonly asked questions but I am still having some confusion. It is quite possible I have just overlooked it but I thought I would ask for some clarification.

Basically I want to do my internship year and my Anesth. residency all in the same town (not wanting to move my family twice and all). I have seen where some programs are 3 years in length and some are 4 years in length. Now I am assuming that those 4 year programs have the internship year plugged right in with the Anesth. program but what about the 3 year programs? Do I have to apply to internal medicine categorical spots in the same town, and interview seperatly at these spots? In theory does that mean I would have to interview at two places in the same town (if I were that lucky)? If so, how does ERAS work? Do I have to rank both the categorical and the Anesth. residency that I am interested in and then take a chance that I get both the categorical spot and the Anesth. residency in the same town? What a confusing mess. I just switched my battle plan to Anesthesiology with high hopes but this seems like a royal pain in the butt. Any information would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

All Anesth. programs will be switching to 4 years. The question is when.

 

[bubalus]

Example: Program A has 15 spots. 10 categorical (4 year, which include a prelim year) and 5 advanced (3 year which require you to find a separate prelim year).

You apply to program A for both categorical and advanced positions. You also apply to that hospital's prelim medicine year and all the other prelim years in town that you are interested in. You'll need to interview for them all. If it's at the same hospital, that can frequently be worked into the day you interview for anesthesia. If the prelim year is at another hospital in the same town, that will typically be a different day, though possibly scheduled back to back.

Now the rank list.
You rank the categorical position #1.
You rank the advanced position #2. Now another box comes up where you rank the prelim spots in the order you desire.

For position #3, you rank an advanced program in another state. Now another box comes up where you rank the prelim spots in the order you desire assuming you were to match at #3.

Now the match. You didn't match at #1 or #2. You matched at #3, so the computer looks at the prelim rank list tied to #3 and matches you in that, if possible. Since you didn't match at #2, the prelim list associated with #2 is ignored.

Got it?

 

[pgy13]

All Anesth. programs will be switching to 4 years. The question is when.

not for a while

 

[treasurefull2]

Example: Program A has 15 spots. 10 categorical (4 year, which include a prelim year) and 5 advanced (3 year which require you to find a separate prelim year).

You apply to program A for both categorical and advanced positions. You also apply to that hospital's prelim medicine year and all the other prelim years in town that you are interested in. You'll need to interview for them all. If it's at the same hospital, that can frequently be worked into the day you interview for anesthesia. If the prelim year is at another hospital in the same town, that will typically be a different day, though possibly scheduled back to back.

Now the rank list.
You rank the categorical position #1.
You rank the advanced position #2. Now another box comes up where you rank the prelim spots in the order you desire.

For position #3, you rank an advanced program in another state. Now another box comes up where you rank the prelim spots in the order you desire assuming you were to match at #3.

Now the match. You didn't match at #1 or #2. You matched at #3, so the computer looks at the prelim rank list tied to #3 and matches you in that, if possible. Since you didn't match at #2, the prelim list associated with #2 is ignored.

Got it?

WOW, thank you. That answers alot of questions!

 

[craigkes]

I really appreciate the responses and it seems like I kind of had an idea but didn't realize it was quite so in-depth. Thanks again for everyone's responses.