Peds fellowship competitiveness

[bluebird70]

So I'm a CA-1 (US MD) at a community program (well-respected but not university) and thinking about going into peds anesthesia. Would it be hard for me to match in a strong pediatric anesthesia fellowship? What do I need to do for a successful match aside from letters of recommendation? ITE scores? Research? Of note, I will rotate for a couple months next year at a national "top ten" children's hospital. Is regional bias a big factor in fellowship match, or can networking overcome this? Thanks everyone.

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[Mehd School]

The elite places will be a tough match regardless of specialty or subspecialty, but pediatrics as a whole is not competitive and there are a lot of open spots.

 

[Justice4all]

Even the elite places are sometimes unfilled, this year as an example. Just apply. Peds not competitive as Mehd said

 

[abolt18]

So I'm a CA-1 (US MD) at a community program (well-respected but not university) and thinking about going into peds anesthesia. Would it be hard for me to match in a strong pediatric anesthesia fellowship? What do I need to do for a successful match aside from letters of recommendation? ITE scores? Research? Of note, I will rotate for a couple months next year at a national "top ten" children's hospital. Is regional bias a big factor in fellowship match, or can networking overcome this? Thanks everyone.

Not competitive, but selective, as I'm told. There are programs that will be very selective and rather leave spots unfilled than take a bunch of their candidates. So there may be a bunch of open spots as well as a large handful of unmatched applicants.

 

[ambiturner]

Peds was super competitive from like 2011-2013, now...not so much. The top programs have typically 6 to 18 spots and as a result the 'honor roll' hospitals probably represent half of all spots in the country. If you pass your basic, get decent ITEs, and have a few good letters, especially from a good pediatric department, you should have no problem getting interviews at several top programs.

I would say there is regional bias insofar as programs will expect applicants to be more likely to take spots at programs where they have family or eventually intend to practice. Some program directors are judged on how far they go down their rank list and will factor this in, others just want to get the best people available and rank based on who they want the most.

 

[GassYous]

Not competitive, but selective, as I'm told. There are programs that will be very selective and rather leave spots unfilled than take a bunch of their candidates. So there may be a bunch of open spots as well as a large handful of unmatched applicants.

Riiiiight
Because people go into academics to do their own cases, not just to have a fully trained anesthesiologist sit their room

 

[IlDestriero]

The best programs will likely remain quite competitive and selective no matter what happens to the rest of the programs. You can match somewhere if you’re a strong applicant, good scores, etc. Prior to the match things were very incestuous and nearly all our fellows came from the same handful of elite programs, your odds are better now. Research will help if you’re looking at BCH, CHOP, etc. especially if you dream of a faculty position there, though it’s not absolutely necessary.

 

[JiPo]

During the 3 years of my residency, every single resident matched within their top 2 choices for peds, with most of them landing on their top choice. That is N=10 so take that as you will. We had people match at BCH and CHOP with zero research. As long as you pass all exams and show up to work every day, you will match very well.

 

[JiPo]

Not competitive, but selective, as I'm told. There are programs that will be very selective and rather leave spots unfilled than take a bunch of their candidates. So there may be a bunch of open spots as well as a large handful of unmatched applicants.

I have heard that before, and I thought that was total BS.

If that is true, looks like 33 programs (55% of all programs) intentionally did not fill 61 spots in this year’s match.

https://www.nrmp.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/2021-Anesthesiology-Match-Results-Statistics.pdf

According to this report, 2 people went unmatched across the country.