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Message: <blockquote data-quote="womansurg" data-source="post: 442132" data-attributes="member: 16127">Many residencies either recommend or require an intern year of general surgery prior to entering their training program. Examples would be orthopedic surgery, urology, ENT, anesthesia, radiology... So, many prelims are folks who have already matched in another specialty which they will begin after one year with us. These are the most desirable applicants to program directors. Usually these folks are very smart, very hard working, and do a good job for you in the year that they are there.Another scenario is a person who has failed to match in their area of interest - g surg, ortho, ER, optho - and chooses a year of gen surg to try and rack up some good LORs and experience to hopefully become more competetive. These folks are more of a gamble. There's often a reason why they failed to match, and sometimes there are problems with work ethic, personality, so forth. Of course, many are hard working and well intentioned.The attrition rate in general surgery is about 30%, so about one third of people starting out as categoricals end up leaving and doing something else. Some prelims are counting on this expected turnover to open up a spot for them as a categorical resident. Another scenario is a person who is unsure of what s/he wants, think s/he might be interested in gen surg and would like to 'try it on'.</blockquote>

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