Scrambling into Surgery Prelim

[gardens421]

I couldn't find any recent threads on this topic.

Hey guys, I'm a below average anesthesia applicant. I've been fortunate to grab 10 Anes interviews and 3 prelim IM interviews. Of the Anes interviews, 6 are categorical and 4 are advanced.

I really like two of the advanced programs, and am considering them in my top 3. I don't have much prelim love though.

I'm wondering how hard it will be to scramble into surgery if I rank the advanced programs high, match with one of them, and fail to match in a prelim medicine spot?

My school advisor told me to stack all catagoricals first because I should not bank on scrambling as a solution if I only match advanced with no prelim

Thanks!

Gardens421

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[Libertas]

there is about 0 chance you couldn't match a prelim in medicine or surgery SOMEWHERE. it might just be super inconvenient based on where you'd have to move x2.

 

[Biochemist21]

Based on 2013 Match data, of the 1041 positions unfilled post-match, 939 were offered in SOAP. Of these positions, the breakdown for PGY-1 spots was:
446 Prelim Surgery, 63 Prelim Medicine, and 28 TYs.

Also keep in mind that if Anesthesia is truly your passion, 31 categorical and 13 advanced Anesthesiology positions were offered up in SOAP. Even these failed to fill as well (28/31 and 12/13 respectively). I don't know what specific institutions were offering these positions, and I'm unsure if sharing the names of these positions would be a Match violation, so you're on your own from there.

What about your home institution for a prelim year? Hopefully you applied there too. Perhaps try talking to the IM or Surgery PD about your situation and see what they say.