Strongly disagree with this statement. Just look at the NRMP Match Results for the last few years - how many US IMGs are in orthopedics (3), ophthalmology (28 IMGs, no breakdowns between US IMG and true IMG), Neurosurgery (3), General Surgery (51), etc?
http://www.nrmp.org/data/resultsanddata2010.pdf
http://www.sfmatch.org/residency/ophthalmology/about_match/match_report.pdf
And with DO schools expanding (class sizes increase, branch campuses, brand new schools), and with MD schools expanding (increasing class size, new MD schools) - the competition is heating up. Many programs are experiencing an increase in applications, and the applicants are experiencing the heat.
Internal Medicine (ACGME), out of 4999 spots, only 52 went unfilled through the match. General Surgery (categorical, ACGME) out of 1077 spots, only 2 spots went unfilled through the match.
Great board scores are a dime a dozen. We have a lot of candidates who scored 99/99 on their step 1/step 2. We also interview candidates who score 85/85. And we rank our candidates on a variety of factors - board scores being only a subset.
During my residency interviews (many years ago), I had several PD asked me about where I did my rotations. Fortunately (thanks to PCOM), all my core rotations were done at hospitals with ACGME residencies in those fields (with the exception of peds and psych). One of the PD confided in me that the reason he asked was because one of his previous residents who matched into his program - turns out that intern's 3rd and 4th year clinical rotations were all outpatient experiences so intern year was his first experience on the inpatient medicine.
😱
Newer schools will have new and shiny facilities. They can also have the latest technology. But it's the clinical years that really differentiate schools. So when I hear applicants on SDN talk about how fancy, shiny, or modern their lecture halls or schools are - I just smile a bit
😎 because in the end, all of that doesn't matter if the students don't get exposed to inpatient rotations at large tertiary care hospitals, taken overnight call with the team, see the range of COMMON pathologies, etc.
*no, I'm not going to name which school that intern attended.