residency competitiveness

[TobiasFunkeMDFACS]

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I'm trying to get an idea of the competitiveness of surgery residencies. Here's the order that I would put them in:
neuro, ortho> ent, thoracic, vascular > general

Also does doing research in ortho help with getting into ent or general?

Thanks in advance for your input!

 

[Smurfette]

I'm trying to get an idea of the competitiveness of surgery residencies. Here's the order that I would put them in:
neuro, ortho> ent, thoracic, vascular > general

Also does doing research in ortho help with getting into ent or general?

Thanks in advance for your input!

No. I'd put it at

ortho, plastics > GU, ent, neuro > general > thoracic, vascular

My reasoning: thoracic and vascular fellowships are not very competitive. Though starting on a 3+3 or other dedicated track is fairly new with a low overall number of spots, I would argue that there is a larger percentage of people failing to match GS than CT or vascular. Few students have adequate exposure to CT or vascular to decide to do that route, especially since they know that they can opt to do it as a fellowship (or switch to a 3+3 type program) once they have had enough exposure--via GS--to make that decision.

Neurosurg is very competitive, but is a notch below ortho/plastics given the crappy lifestyle.

 

[cpants]

No. I'd put it at

ortho, plastics > GU, ent, neuro > general > thoracic, vascular

My reasoning: thoracic and vascular fellowships are not very competitive. Though starting on a 3+3 or other dedicated track is fairly new with a low overall number of spots, I would argue that there is a larger percentage of people failing to match GS than CT or vascular. Few students have adequate exposure to CT or vascular to decide to do that route, especially since they know that they can opt to do it as a fellowship (or switch to a 3+3 type program) once they have had enough exposure--via GS--to make that decision.

Neurosurg is very competitive, but is a notch below ortho/plastics given the crappy lifestyle.

Neurosurg is more competitive due to the small number of spots. There are tons of ortho programs. The same with the CT combined spots. I think there less than 10 in the whole country. I don't know how to rank them for that reason.

Neuro, plastics > ortho, GU, ENT > general

 

[DoctwoB]

I'd say

Integrated plastics > Neuro = Ortho = ENT = Urology > integrated vascular/integrated CT > GS

Neuro and Ortho are tough to compare. The match % and qualifications of applicants appear similar. Neuro is much smaller though, so things like who wrote your rec letters, where you did aways, and what connections your chairman has play a much bigger role. Its not necessarily harder than ortho, but it is different.

Integrated vascular and especially CT are still very new and its hard to say how competitive they are due to their novelty and small # of programs.

 

[Bombrainiac]

Neurosurg, Integrated Plastics > Ortho, ENT, Urology > GS

It's not just the sheer number of applicants compared to the number of spots available. It's the caliber of the applicants. Integrated plastics tends to attract very serious, very motivated applicants who have been gunning for plastics from day 1 of medical school. Neurosurgery is very similar, attracting monster applicants. I don't know enough about the integrated CT programs to comment.

 

[2012mdc]

Neurosurg, Integrated Plastics > Ortho, ENT, Urology > GS

It's not just the sheer number of applicants compared to the number of spots available. It's the caliber of the applicants. Integrated plastics tends to attract very serious, very motivated applicants who have been gunning for plastics from day 1 of medical school. Neurosurgery is very similar, attracting monster applicants. I don't know enough about the integrated CT programs to comment.

I would have to say Integrated Plastics> NSurg> ENT> Ortho >>GS

Urology has its own match and I know it's really competitive, just don't know the stats to compare. Not enough programs in Vasc or CT integrated to compare at this point

Integrated Plastics has the lowest match rate due to the low number of spots but their numbers are ridiculous too. Highest Steps, research (even a little more than rad onc), AOA etc. And even then it's just not about great stats.

Based on the last charting outcomes, ENT has slightly better stats and less than half the spots of Ortho but I'm probably just splitting hairs.

GS is getting more competitive it seems but it still doesn't compare

 

[ZagDoc]

Depends on what variable you use to define "competitive" as many of the competitive fields tend to self select (as stated above). If you use last year's match data and the match rate of US allopathic seniors (a reasonable surrogate for competitiveness if you only have to choose one variable IMHO):
1. Integrated Cardiothoracic - 16.3%
2. Integrated Plastics - 36.3%
3. Integrated Vascular - 48.7%
4. Otolaryngology - 65.6%
5. General Surgery - 70.9%
6. Orthopedic Surgery - 74.7%
7. Neurosurgery - 81.9%
8. Urology - 88.0%
9. Ophthalmology - 91.0%

I was surprised only 71% of US seniors matched into GS last year, but those are the numbers.

 

[2012mdc]

Depends on what variable you use to define "competitive" as many of the competitive fields tend to self select (as stated above). If you use last year's match data and the match rate of US allopathic seniors (a reasonable surrogate for competitiveness if you only have to choose one variable IMHO):
1. Integrated Cardiothoracic - 16.3%
2. Integrated Plastics - 36.3%
3. Integrated Vascular - 48.7%
4. Otolaryngology - 65.6%
5. General Surgery - 70.9%
6. Orthopedic Surgery - 74.7%
7. Neurosurgery - 81.9%
8. Urology - 88.0%
9. Ophthalmology - 91.0%

I was surprised only 71% of US seniors matched into GS last year, but those are the numbers.

Which table/figure are you getting those numbers from? Table 14 paints a different picture

 

[ZagDoc]

Which table/figure are you getting those numbers from? Table 14 paints a different picture

Table 1 (# applied/# matched for the %s). Table 14 is skewed away from the competitive specialties as it is applicants who only ranked one specialty. For the competitive fields, many applicants apply to back-ups. Doesn't mean they don't want to match into the more competitive field.

 

[Bombrainiac]

Match rates do not reflect competitiveness. They are more a reflection of the number of applicants needed for a program to find a group that they want in the program. Anyone who has been a part of a residency admissions can corroborate that.

"Regular" match specialties (vs early match) get a lot of applicants who have no business applying. For instance, a ton of general surgery applicants can just throw their name in the hat for an integrated program, or whatever. There are still some specialties that truly self-select. Urology and neurosurgery are two good examples. Trust me when I tell you that we can spot an imposter from a mile away if they are just throwing their name in the pile in the regular match. But since they applied, and have NO chance of matching, that application will affect the "match" rate.

Look at the number of GS residents who apply for plastics fellowships. It's staggering. Now, all those applicants obviously don't get their fellowship, but they're still included in the match stats for that fellowship. Those same applicants can apply for integrated spots as well before they even start residency.

It's hard to know for sure, but it's pretty much the perennial powerhouses that are always the most competitive, however you want to slice it: Neurosurgery, Plastics, Ortho, ENT.

You've got to think about what each field is doing and what kind of applicants they're attracting. Look at interventional radiology as an example: it used to be the sexiest field when it first started booming, attracting the best applicants. Now, an IR program would be lucky to fill all of its spots. You also have to pay attention to what your fellow applicants are all about. Lifestyle means nothing to a neurosurgery applicant, whereas it could mean everything to an ENT applicant--you're going to get a very different applicant for both fields. Both applicants will be competitive in their own way, but they will likely have very different strengths and weaknesses.

In the end, it's all speculation. For you, depending on your strengths, you may be more competitive for, say, plastics, than neurosurgery, or vice versa. Is Sugar Ray Leonard better than George Foreman? Hard to say. Depends what you value in a fighter. But that's my point.

 

[2012mdc]

Table 1 (# applied/# matched for the %s). Table 14 is skewed away from the competitive specialties as it is applicants who only ranked one specialty. For the competitive fields, many applicants apply to back-ups. Doesn't mean they don't want to match into the more competitive field.

Yeah I see. I wasn't sure how to interpret Table 1. I didn't know if the Surgery numbers would include people who applied to Ortho with GS as a backup - if they match Ortho, do they count as unmatched for GS in that table?

When looking at the numbers from Table 1 and Table 14, most people only apply to 1 specialty, even in the competitive ones.

Ortho - 801 US seniors (703 to 1 specialty)
ENT - 335 US Seniors (292)
NSurg - 211 (199)
Plastic - 168 (68) - An exception but it's insanely competitive and there are other routers besides integrated
GS - 1262 (956). - The match rate jumps to 84% when just looking at US seniors who apply only to GS.

I may be interpreting this wrong but it seems to me since more people use GS as backup the match rate is lower in Table 1 compared to Table 14 b/c it is including people who may have applied to GS but matched Plastics 1st.

 

[DoctwoB]

Yeah I see. I wasn't sure how to interpret Table 1. I didn't know if the Surgery numbers would include people who applied to Ortho with GS as a backup - if they match Ortho, do they count as unmatched for GS in that table?

When looking at the numbers from Table 1 and Table 14, most people only apply to 1 specialty, even in the competitive ones.

Ortho - 801 US seniors (703 to 1 specialty)
ENT - 335 US Seniors (292)
NSurg - 211 (199)
Plastic - 168 (68) - An exception but it's insanely competitive and there are other routers besides integrated
GS - 1262 (956). - The match rate jumps to 84% when just looking at US seniors who apply only to GS.

I may be interpreting this wrong but it seems to me since more people use GS as backup the match rate is lower in Table 1 compared to Table 14 b/c it is including people who may have applied to GS but matched Plastics 1st.

Yes, if you apply both ortho and general, you go "unmatched" in one field if you match in the other.

 

[ZagDoc]

Yeah I see. I wasn't sure how to interpret Table 1. I didn't know if the Surgery numbers would include people who applied to Ortho with GS as a backup - if they match Ortho, do they count as unmatched for GS in that table?

When looking at the numbers from Table 1 and Table 14, most people only apply to 1 specialty, even in the competitive ones.

Ortho - 801 US seniors (703 to 1 specialty)
ENT - 335 US Seniors (292)
NSurg - 211 (199)
Plastic - 168 (68) - An exception but it's insanely competitive and there are other routers besides integrated
GS - 1262 (956). - The match rate jumps to 84% when just looking at US seniors who apply only to GS.

I may be interpreting this wrong but it seems to me since more people use GS as backup the match rate is lower in Table 1 compared to Table 14 b/c it is including people who may have applied to GS but matched Plastics 1st.

That's fair. It's all sloppy science anyways. What is "competitiveness"? As Bombrainiac said, a lot of self-selection goes on. You can get a sense for it looking at match rates, board scores, etc but there's no true metric for "how difficult is it to land a residency position in this field as an undifferentiated medical student".

 

[Therecanbeonlyo]

I'm trying to get an idea of the competitiveness of surgery residencies. Here's the order that I would put them in:
neuro, ortho> ent, thoracic, vascular > general

Also does doing research in ortho help with getting into ent or general?

Thanks in advance for your input!

The order you have isn't bad...
http://www.nrmp.org/data/resultsanddata2010.pdf
That's the data for you...

Here's the number of spots for each different specialty
Neuro: 191
Ortho: 656
ENT: 280
Gen Surg: 1077

Here's the chart that has specialty specific data http://www.nrmp.org/data/chartingoutcomes2009v3.pdf

The thoracic, vascular, and plastic numbers are skewed becuase there are integrated programs that are 6-7 years that count as gen surg programs.

It's also, as many have mentioned, difficult to gage how competitive something is because it will change year to year.

As far as research goes, you will be served well by doing any research but research in that specific field will serve you best. But there are ways around this by doing something that could apply broadly like trauma or ICU stuff.

The bottom line is, if you look at the data, you don't NEED research, you don't NEED to be AOA, you don't NEED to have a 240+ USMLE, you don't NEED another degree...but all of those things help in increasing your chances

As an aside, i matched in ortho

 

[JustUseYourHead]

This is pretty much it...look at the data that was posted and do a reality check on yourself. Also, there are sites specific to almost all of those specialties

Just be awesome...the rest will work itself out...