Number of Internal Medicine Applicants

[1996]

The IM program director at my institution told me that PDs from around the country are predicting a 20% decrease nationally in the number of internal medicine applicants compared to last year. That's a pretty significant drop. I guess that's good for those of us applying this year!

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[Renovar]

20% across the nation? I highly doubt it, that's 1 out of 5, kinda steep for a steady field like IM. Maybe your PD is saying that the IM program at your institution received 20% less application and extrapolating data from that.

But at any rate, let's suppose that your statement is true across the nation. Why such a big decrease? and more importantly, how does it affect us applying this year? I would imagine, at least for the USMG's, that it doesn't really matter much because the most competitive, high-strung places are still going to be competitive (ie. all the good applicants are still going to apply to the same places, and competition is still goign to be there), and the less competitive places and lots of community programs wont fill, which for USMG's is not a big deal because pretty much everyone who graduate from US med school can get an IM residency spot. I guess the real benefactor in that scenario is the IMG's.

 

[exjersey]

I agree that a 20% decrease in applicants sounds too high. But there has been a steady decline in US grads filling categorical IM spots since 1998, and the trend is expected to continue According to the this article, applications were down 5% last year and 12% since 1998.

http://www.acponline.org/journals/news/may03/match.htm

 

[1996]

My PD was referring to a predicted 20% drop nationally. Actually, the drop at my school (a top ten med school) is even higher than that. We have a >50% drop from last year, and a 75% drop from as recently as 3 years ago. One of the reasons that he gave me, and also one that I have witnessed myself, is that more applicants are being drawn to fields that traditionally have long hours such as surgery because of the implementation of the 80-hour week rule. In the past, many of these people would have chosen IM over surgery solely for the reason of hours and lifestyle during residency.

Many of these applicants lost to the other fields would have been very competitive candidates for spots at top IM programs. As such, even the top IM programs in the country would probably see a drop in both the quantity and quality of their applicants. Hence, the competition for these top programs would also decrease slightly, maybe not as much as 20%, but definitely lower than years past.