I was in an abusive marriage and had to make residency choices that were best for the right now. Now that I’m separated, I want to redo residency. I went in FM so I could be home more. I really do not like it. I would love Path or Rads. I was about to apply to Rads the first time but was talked out of it . Does it make sense to go back? Would someone take me?
Really evaluate whether you want to do this which is personal and I'll leave to you. I can see a possible path but it would be a process and there's no guarantee that you're going to be successful.
1. The first thing you need to figure out is how the residency funding is going to work because money's how the world goes around. Medicare pays for "x" years of ACGME residency. After "x" years are over, the remaining is funded to a lesser degree (I don't know specifics). You did 3 years of a primary care residency and are now going back to do specialty residency. I don't know if that will allow you to just simply get fully funded as if medicare's paying for a different indication (specialty training) OR if your previous family residency will eat into your funding at this residency and the hospital will have to pay the bill for the remaining amount (which is obviously a con to any program that considers you). Someone who knows better on here should be able to tell you.
2. In terms of actually applying this application cycle's already started and I can tell you that program coordinators/directors will have little patience for your application right now (but you can try). Therefore your options are as follows:
Most likely to work:
A.) Apply for a position starting in July 2022 via ERAS (the electronic residency application system) at which point applications will start getting submitted. Luckily for you, you can continue what you're doing that pays the bills until then. Alternatively, you have until then to get experience in the field however way you may be able to do some rads/path work which may reflect well on you in the application cycle. This will also give you time to work under someone who can write you letters, etc.
Pros: Allows you the best chance to get a legit app together
Cons: Time, May need more funding depending on how that works
Possible:
B.) Midyear positions (again something I'm unsure about for you): You may get PGY-1 credit for doing FM if we're considering Radiology since that residency usually does prelim year.
If that's the case, you could potentially ask about midyear PGY-1 openings now since you'd be qualified to start in the middle of PGY-1. Be ready to pack your bags if you hear back. You're going to have extend a large net (i.e. all the residencies in the country). ResidencySwap.org sometimes has listings for open posts. Its a paid service and I believe there's someone on here who can tell you more about it (I'm not affiliated with the company)
Pros: Less time. Also, you may not need references and all the standard stuff if someone's just willing to straight up take you.
Cons: Funding
Longshot:
Take advantage of the fact that we are in the middle of an application cycle and throw in an application now
if able to. Two reasons its a long shot is that #1 where are your letters going to come from? #2 this application cycle is its own mess and even if you technically meet some deadlines, most places have rushed to invite interview candidates and even most applicants now aren't getting interviews. If the deadlines are done, you could try submitting a manual application.
3.) Other challenges: Depending on how far off you are from graduation, getting all the paper work (if it was even digitalized at that point) may be a challenge. Additionally, there are a lot of filters even with the ERAS 2022 route that admissions departments for residencies use which include whether or not you graduates before XYZ arbitrary year, etc. Expect your application to get filtered out a lot which is why you'll really have to extend your reach.
