residencies and match lists

[ComplexPuzzle]

So i have to plead a lil bit of confusion when it comes to the whole residency process and match list info...everyone seems to be basing their decisions in part on this aspect of med school...so my question is exactly what does it all mean...is there some website or book or something that ranks residency programs...who do you know what programs are high caliber...and further more apart from the few obvious ones, which specialites are highly competitive...sorry if this is a stupid question...but i'll never understand unless i ask...right...thanks

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[Joe Joe on da Radio]

US News Rankings

These are generally regarded as the top hospitals in the nation and the most competitive places to land a residency in. Although not any one of them by themselves are the best to train for EVERY specialty in medicine (except for Hopkins from the looks of things), a school's number of students matching into these hospitas are a good indicator of how strong its match list is.

For specific specialties...

click

and you'll see that for something like opthamalogy, a match into Univ. of Miami is actually a better match than UCSF.

so when evaluating a match list, ask yourself:

1) how many grads are matching into the best hospitals in the nation, in general?
2) how many grads are matching into the best places to train for their speciality?

and you can get a relative idea of where a schools reputation stands in educating its medical students. keep in mind that some people will choose a residency based on other factors (proximity to family, spouse, desire to practice in rural and/or underserved areas, etc.) which will result in seemingly "non-competitive" matches.

-joe joe

 

[Brewster]

You also have to keep in mind that hospitals with highly regarded specialists from a patient care perspective (ie, the US News rankings) do not necessarily have the best training programs.

As mentioned above, there are a lot of factors that go into each graduating medical students choice of residency program. The best you can do with match lists is to get an overall gestalt.

These days, the "more competitive" specialities are:
opthomology, ENT, neurosurgery, plastics, radiology, orthopedics, dermatology, urology