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Prelim surgery spot
Started by medhacker
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It's a one and sometimes two year spot at a program that is basically used as a segue to another field i.e. anesthesia, radiology or a gateway into the surigcal subspecialties such as urology or ortho. It can also be done by those who fail to match and scramble into a prelim spot in the hopes that a solid performance on their part might make them an attractive applicant to that program or other programs. The big difference is there is no commitment on the part of the program from year to year to the prelim resident and they can sometimes work the prelims harder than they would their "own" i.e. categorical residents. Is this at all clear? 😉
Not through the match. Monday the week of the match you are notified if you matched or not. If you didn't then you can "scramble" into any open spots by calling the programs. In competitive fields there are usually very few if any open spots. However, there are an abundance of prelim spots because you are basically cheap labor without a long-term commitment from the program.
medhacker said:
You CAN get a prelim spot through the match, but if you want to complete a GS residency, the wise thing is to only rank categorical spots, and scramble into a prelim spot if you don't match. People doing residencies that require a prelim year (i.e. ortho, urology) do usually apply for and rank prelim spots, although many of these residency programs will automatically give you a prelim spot in their surgery dept if you match in the program.
