Prelim Gen Surg

[Gute]

How difficult is it to match into a general surgery prelim spot?

For my family's sake, I cannot move to another place just for a cush transitional year. However, I am willing to be a surgery intern for a year to just move once.

I'm a competitive radiology applicant who did great in m3 gen surg and will have a quality letter from my home program's surgery chair. My main concern is if I need to apply to more than one GS prelim program per city I am considering. Although I am willing to pay more money to expand my options, I am inherently going to be limited by the number of interviews I can make it to, and I think applying to 8 prelim surgery programs in one location is probably overkill. Any thoughts?

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[Smurfette]

It wouldn't be hard to match into it, depending on where you want to be and on if the program you're trying to get into has plenty of prelim spots to fill. You shouldn't need to interview at a ton of prelim programs per categorical rads spot you're trying for....it's not worth it.
If you are in a big city or metro area, if you don't match you can try to scramble into a surgery prelim spot. There are a LOT of prelim surgery spots leftover after the match to scramble into.

 

[45408]

Not that hard, unless it's at a prestigious place. I've got a classmate who wants to do IR, so he's doing a prelim surgery year. Seems like a good plan to me.

 

[Winged Scapula]

Are you an AMG?

Do you have a passing score on Step 1?

Are you somewhat normal?

Do you have a pulse?

Shake and stir and you can most likely find a Prelim GS position. Remember these are the positions almost no one wants with the exception of prestigious places but I'd still be willing to bet that they would take you over an FMG.

 

[treehorsio]

Kudos to you for even considering a surg prelim. Most rads (and anesthesia, even more increduously) do medicine instead b/c it's "easier".

 

[Gute]

Kudos to you for even considering a surg prelim. Most rads (and anesthesia, even more increduously) do medicine instead b/c it's "easier".

I realize some surg programs can be pretty malignant, but aside from that surgical problems tend to be more limited (SBO->fix it) as opposed to medicine (dm2, htn, hld, chf, renal failure -> try to fix it).

Plus, surgery is more relevant for rads than IM, at least to a point.

 

[ESU_MD]

If you are already matched into radiology, then you are virtually guaranteed any prelim surgery spot you desire.

If you get turned down from prelim surgery- you are a total tool