Pathology's increase in competiveness

[106174]

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I can go on forever...but I think what is really gonna get an applicant in the door for residency at least is the following: excellent communication skills and interpersonal communication,medical knowledge,comon sense, excellent work ethic, personaibility, and expereience (in some form or another you as an applicant should be able to talk shop in a limited form). With this in hand you can potentially build a decent future in this field. There are tons of programs out there looking for a resident work force to replace or prevent expensive PA type skills… beware.

How does this fit into your contention that path is competitive? Your argument is way off tangent.

 

[106174]

But overall in the current climate path is competitive. lord knows why merry Xmas

Yeah, keep telling yourself that!

 

[mcfaddens]

Yeah, keep telling yourself that!

OK maybe I shouldn’t post after a couple of martinis before I go to bed. But I do think that the path resident pool has improved in the past couple of years. If you are lucky enough to get a job most of them generally pay well compared to other specialties and the work load (including time spent on call and at the office) is relatively low compared to that of surgery of a busy IM group. Therefore better applicants may find this appealing, and path residencies can be more selective. All of my babbling about communication skills was directed toward any potential applicant that may not have a clear picture of the skill set needed to be a good practicing pathologist. Also with regard to your statement about finding employment PM me and Ill give you some insight. I do not intend to flame you in a public forum, but I disagree with your statements regarding the current applicant pool.

 

[mcfaddens]

speaking of communication skills . . . maybe 58% of what you wrote was interpretable.

Hey back off MSIII! At least I was still coherent enough to use spell check. And what is the 58% all about, did you actually sit there and figure that out, seriously man get a life. (im just kidding)

 

[thewebthsp]

Arctic is going through some tough times so be kind-- rewind

Hmm. I think the most important figure of competitiveness is % IMG which historically has been in the 30-40% range for path, which is about as competitive as IM. However, the applications are up 33% this year, _at least_, and assuming a US preference (unusual to have a lot of unmatched US seniors) then that number will go down to 20% or so. Which is still a bit less competitive than ED or Anesthesia. In no way is it on the level of Derm or RadOnc or even Radiology.

In the end that hurts IMG applicants this year. In addition, the field may become quite competitive if the application % keep increasing though. It's among very few fields in medicine for having high competition after residency in finding a job...

 

[Path or bust]

Well both Big D and Mcfaddens have good points and I think a good summary is:

Pathology has increased in competitiveness (with some exceptional candidates in the mix) but overall pathology is still not competitive as the ratio of AMG/FMG is comparable to the uncompetitive specialties.

(I'm too much of a people pleaser) 😀

Arctic is going through some tough times so be kind-- rewind

Hmm. I think the most important figure of competitiveness is % IMG which historically has been in the 30-40% range for path, which is about as competitive as IM. However, the applications are up 33% this year, _at least_, and assuming a US preference (unusual to have a lot of unmatched US seniors) then that number will go down to 20% or so. Which is still a bit less competitive than ED or Anesthesia. In no way is it on the level of Derm or RadOnc or even Radiology.

In the end that hurts IMG applicants this year. In addition, the field may become quite competitive if the application % keep increasing though. It's among very few fields in medicine for having high competition after residency in finding a job...

 

[HbyHA]

i have heard from my PD that this is a much deeper year than usual, and reading through some of the interview packets, i must say i've been more than intimidated by some. but board scores and AOA, while impressive resume builders, do not help you if you are a total bozo in person and a nightmare to work with! we have a basic cutoff to interview people, and then go from there. if the residents (and or faculty) give us negative feed back about someone, it doesn't matter how high their board scores are, we won't rank them.

as far as the prematch position offering goes, i can see why it may be done. we've offered one so far, and it wasn't because we're afraid of not filling. we saw an excellent candidate that everyone loved and was geographically restricted. why torture the poor guy for several more months, when we could say, "We like you and are planning to rank you high enough to have a guaranteed spot." I think PD's get tired of playing the game, and if they see a good candidate that they want and think will come to the program, why not offer them a spot? we've had some people (in recent memory) swear up and down how much they love us and how they want to come to the program, and there we were shrugging our shoulders about what happened when the match list came out.

and as far as how competitive the specialty is, i don't really care. i didn't go into path because it was tough to get into, i'm doing it because there is no other job in the world that i could imagine doing. and competetiveness is all relative. my particular subspecialty (FP) would not be considered particularly competitive, but the fellowship i am heading to is probably one of the most competitive in the country. so does that mean that i should be proud i got the spot, but not too proud because not many pathologists (and medical school grads as a whole, like less that <0.1%) go into it? it doesn't really matter, i just finally get to do the job that i set out to do 6.5 years ago! (did i mention FINALLY!!!!)

 

[pathstudent]

Yes. My point was is that Pathology has a lot more interest than it did a few years ago, but it isn't nearly as competitive as general surgery, all subspecialty surg, rads, derm and rad onc. It has gone from being the absolutely unequivocal least competitive specialty to being more like internal medicine or pediatrics. The elite programs might be hard to get into but you have to have serious issues to be an AMG and not match somewhere.

 

[JPmamd09]

I really appreciate everyone's insight, thank you very much! Didn't mean to start any disagreements either 😳

Part of my reason for asking about competitiveness is not that I'm looking for something easy to just sneak into. My concern is that because of my family I'm somewhat restricted in the number of programs to which I can apply, and in fact would really love to stay where I am. There are two programs in my state, and then of course several in Chicago (very close by), but I'd hate to go unmatched if that's not enough programs. Further, my situation is complicated by late decision to do pathology, husband still in graduate school in my city for another year, and finally (most importantly), having a baby in July 09 - all of which have led me down the unorthodox path of deferring for a year (yikes!).

So ultimately, I was just trying to get a grasp on what my chances looked like, if I could pursue this because it's something I really want - I don't want to settle on something "easy" - I could do IM at our program if that's what I wanted. But I want to do something that makes me happy, and that's pathology. So thanks again everyone, lots to talk about and think about. Happy New Year!