Ranking only one program and entering match twice?

[JBlue]

I am expecting my second child in August and would like to stay in my current city if at all possible for residency. My husband has a good job here, we own a house and we have family support. I figure I will be MIA through a good chunk of residency and my husband will need all the help he can get with small children. There is only one residency program here so I am thinking of entering match for '08 but only applying to the program in my city. Then if I did not match, I will reenter the match the following cycle and apply to programs nationally. At that point, my baby will be a little bit older and it will give me two tries at the program that I am interested in. I have a high step 1 and have honored all rotations to date so I feel like I have a shot at matching at this program. Is there a problem with this plan? Will it be a red flag to other programs if I don't match the first time or could I just explain that I didn't want to move with a baby etc. etc. It won't bother me that much to take another year to match because I was thinking of taking a year off anyway with the baby. Any advice would be appreciated!

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[EMedGrrl]

I think if you are a strong applicant, you will probably be ok. Have you talked to the PD at your home school about wanting to stay? Most PD's are interested in knowing when their students want to stay, and it definitely won't hurt your chances this year. Otherwise, the only painful things will be: 1) re-applying and going through the whole interview process again next year. 2) being away from medicine for an entire year before starting residency (if you could do some research, stay involved clinically or something, that would be good). 3) dealing with having to explain your decision making to programs that may not understand (although if the PD thinks you made a bad move, you may not want to be there anyway).

Hope that's helpful - good luck with the baby, and residency!

 

[EMIMG]

You may also want to apply to a transitional year program if it is available at your home institution. This way, if you do not match into the EM, you will always be able to do the transitional year and that should make you a stronger candidate the following year as well as keep your feet wet in the medical realm.

 

[Dr.Evil1]

If you are a good applicant then I don't think that your plan is insane. I would definitely talk with the program you are suiciding before you send in your ERAS application.

If you don't match the first time around I would still think that you have a good chance of matching again as long as you did SOMETHING to stay involved with medicine. This doesn't have to be clinical, possibly half time or something from home working with some EM faculty doing research comes to mind. Something so that you don't have a giant hole in your application. There may be some programs that will rank you low/not rank you because of your decision but I would say that you are doing this for a pretty good reason, and if that is their decision then I'm sure you can live with it.

 

[JBlue]

Thanks for the replys. I will just see how it goes. I am planning on talking to the PD of the program I am trying to get into after this year's match and getting an opinion from him. I had hoped other programs would not really look at it too unfavorably if I explain that I only applied to one program and my situation. I will find some way to make my application stronger during that year if I don't match. Tonight I am feeling so tired of the limbo of school that I am actually ready to just do whatever it takes to get out of here and on with residency. 4 more weeks of internal...ugh.