prelim. surgery vs. surgery

[doctaroo]

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What's the difference? I've seen people matched into both straight after undergrad.

 

[Blade28]

After undergrad? Or med school?

 

[Winged Scapula]

What's the difference? I've seen people matched into both straight after undergrad.

I would refer you to the excellent FAQ in the Surgery forum but this is an easy question.

Preliminary Surgery is a 1 or 2 year period of training in general surgery, usually as a preliminary training for residencies that require such base training. They can be separated into "Designated Prelim" which are generally for people who have matched into a Surgery Subspecialty (like ENT, Urology, etc.) and "Non-Designated Prelim", the vastly less popular of the two options.

Most people who have the choice of doing a Preliminary base training year in either Medicine or Surgery choose the former. Designated prelims spend most of their year doing a variety of general surgery and required rotations for their specialty.

Non-designated Prelims OTOH are typically (not always) people who could not match into a Categorical Surgery position. The latter is designed as the training program that leads to Board Eligibility in General Surgery. Although you are not guaranteed to finish, it is expected that you will; whereas the Preliminary Surgery position does not lead to BE in Surgery, nor does it imply any job after the year is over.

Hope this helps.

 

[BlondeDocteur]

After undergrad? Or med school?

In most countries medical school is a university degree-- not postgraduate. If Doctaroo is from-- taking a wild guess here-- Australia, then s/he would have commenced medical training at 18, after completing secondary school.

And Doctaroo, in case the terminology in WS's excellent post was a bit confusing-- a prelim year is just that, one year. After that year, you might find a position to continue your training, or you might not. A Categorical residency is a guaranteed spot for all 5 years of training, provided you pass your exams and don't sleep with the patients or anything.

For obvious reasons, a categorical spot is vastly preferred. Cause, you know, you can get a job and call yourself a surgeon afterwards.

 

[Winged Scapula]

While the name doctaroo might imply being from Oz, his/her posts seem to indicate being an American who is applying for US medical schools. But BD is right...the medical degree is an undergraduate degree, both here and in Oz.

I do take exception with calling a Categorical Surgery position as guaranteed...even in the microcosm of SDN, we see residents fired for all sorts of reasons claimed to be less than sleeping with the PD's wife or flashing cell phone photos of a strip club owner's nether regions.

But yes, in a simplistic fashion (sorry, I was tired last night when I wrote the above response):

preliminary is usually 1 year of surgery, after that what you do is up to you

(categorical) surgery is expected to lead to a complete training track after which you will be a surgeon and operate on people and stuff

 

[Pinkertinkle]

Sounds like troll.

 

[rox]

There's been always those prelim interns who manage to convert into a categorical position at the same program, and this issue was discussed several times before...but, generally speaking, how do other programs look at a prelim intern? In other words, how much more competitive does it make him/her? (provided the applicant has no major red flags that prevented him/her from matching first Tim - eg Old, very low scores..etc)

Is it possible that a program won't let a Prelim intern have some time off for interviews? You don't want that to happen!

 

[holidoc]

What's the difference? I've seen people matched into both straight after undergrad.

Prelim. surgery is used as a descriptor in the context of its evil brother.....categorical surgery (those that have decided that they will be in surgical residency until they graduate as a general surgeon or surgical fellow) . That is, once you show up with a beeper on your hip, you could be Jerry Garcia, and until you screw up..... it won't matter if your preliminary pee wee Herman! As long as you match somewhere and perform, you will have more than enough opportunities to define yourself as either a solid or weak incoming PGY-2. I've known several people that have scambled into prelim. programs close to or at the same institution as their match choice, and all that mattered was their perceived value...as stated in reference letters and resident evaluations. Good luck.

 

[Blade28]

I do take exception with calling a Categorical Surgery position as guaranteed...even in the microcosm of SDN, we see residents fired for all sorts of reasons claimed to be less than sleeping with the PD's wife or flashing cell phone photos of a strip club owner's nether regions.

Indeed, even the Categorical residents only sign one-year contracts each June. You have to "earn" the right to continue on in your training at your residency program.

FYI, there are no "5-year" contracts.