Some Residency Programs Now Requiring CASPer for 2021 Match

[Neopolymath]

This entire thread isn't a good look on anyone.

I'm glad you aren't pretending anymore. The new snarky brand is more realistic and fun.

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[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

This entire thread isn't a good look on anyone.

If you say so. Your attempt at shaming students with a legitimate complaint and unwillingness to admit that something with next to zero demonstrated utility is nothing more than a money grab for a testing company and extra hoops for applicants that admins are happy to put up is the perfect embodiment of the problems so many students have with med ed admin.

 

[Neopolymath]

If you say so. Your attempt at shaming students with a legitimate complaint and unwillingness to admit that something with next to zero demonstrated utility is nothing more than a money grab for a testing company and extra hoops for applicants that admins are happy to put up is the perfect embodiment of the problems so many students have with med ed admin.

If one dies a death of 1,000 cuts, it's comforting to know that someone in medical education will definitely be there to remind everyone that each cut was "really small and not a big deal."

 

[Med Ed]

If you say so. Your attempt at shaming students with a legitimate complaint and unwillingness to admit that something with next to zero demonstrated utility is nothing more than a money grab for a testing company and extra hoops for applicants that admins are happy to put up is the perfect embodiment of the problems so many students have with med ed admin.

I do not think the complaints are legitimate (yet).

The utility of CASPer in GME has not been demonstrated. That's the point of doing a pilot. You are making an unfounded inference from previous studies that either used a non-CAPSer SJT or compared CASPer to the MMI.

You should consider a career in med ed admin. My job will be open in a few years.

 

[Med Ed]

If one dies a death of 1,000 cuts, it's comforting to know that someone in medical education will definitely be there to remind everyone that each cut was "really small and not a big deal."

You totally need to work in student affairs: Academic Medicine Jobs - AAMC CareerConnect

 

[MDMechEngr]

MMI is cool also. it is catching on. Bring it.

 

[trapperjohn4077]

If I created a program that randomly selected candidates based on their astrological sign and social security number, and some residency programs decided to use it to rank candidates, then I'm sure we would see a similar course of events:

1. Those programs would cut down on applications they need to look at
2. Applicants would complain (rightly) about the arbitrary and completely baseless nature of the test
3. "Med Ed" would be on here crying about how applicants "aren't giving it a chance"

At best CASPer is a test of typing speed, at worst it's a random number generator. The results are hidden from applicants, which is a smart move on their part - it's hard to complain about how arbitrary your score is if you can't see your score.

I don't need some out of touch administrator to tell me whether the test is bad or not - I know it's bad, I've taken the damn thing.

 

[Lawpy]

MMI is cool also. it is catching on. Bring it.

This reminds me of the midlevel thread where anyone trying to criticize midlevels on Twitter would be faced with angry condemnation from virtue signaling M1s who are passionately brownnosing admins in hopes of better matching success. To see something similar happening on SDN is disappointing

 

[sunshinefl]

This reminds me of the midlevel thread where anyone trying to criticize midlevels on Twitter would be faced with angry condemnation from virtue signaling M1s who are passionately brownnosing admins in hopes of better matching success. To see something similar happening on SDN is disappointing

It’s the artist formerly known as MDgunner. Once I put that together it made sense and I was able to just roll my eyes and move on with my day.

 

[Steve_Zissou]

It’s the artist formerly known as MDgunner. Once I put that together it made sense and I was able to just roll my eyes and move on with my day.

I don’t know who that is but I figured they were just trolling once I saw that they are an MS1.

 

[deleted1081396]

Any word so far on if any other programs are adopting this garbage this year?

 

[PD2021]

Spoke truth about some admin? Yes I’m sure that most admins have no better motivation behind their decisions than making poor medical students’ and residents’ lives hell.
If they truly had malicious intentions, your life would be much more hellish.

And you honestly don’t think that comments like the one made about admins contribute to the toxic culture of medicine? I suppose you also don’t think any physicians or residents are ever disrespectful of other health professionals.

I’m sorry that my views make you sad, but I truly am a resident. I’m not an admin in any medical schools or health care systems and never have been one. I suppose it’s only fitting that your views make me equally sad, because until those views change the culture of medicine will continue to be as toxic as it is today.

This is a very troubling thread. What many of you fail to realize is
1) The "administrators" of which you speak so tenderly are generally physicians who have dedicated their lives to medical education
2) What makes residents have problems in residency? Issues like ethics, communications, unprofessionalism. Not lack of medical knowledge. Can we KNOW if these methods are proven to work? Is there data? Who knows. But despite interviews, we see residents who have problems and anything that programs to do that may predict who may have difficulty is worth considering.

 

[deleted1100659]

This is a very troubling thread. What many of you fail to realize is
1) The "administrators" of which you speak so tenderly are generally physicians who have dedicated their lives to medical education
2) What makes residents have problems in residency? Issues like ethics, communications, unprofessionalism. Not lack of medical knowledge. Can we KNOW if these methods are proven to work? Is there data? Who knows. But despite interviews, we see residents who have problems and anything that programs to do that may predict who may have difficulty is worth considering.

But how do we ensure that the CASPer test administrators have demonstrated enough morale superiority and are ethically the best of the best? We need to implement CASPer^2. Test the administrators with more administrators and develop a convoluted hierarchy of ethics.

All seriousness, I dont believe a written test will filter out people who have obvious deficits in professionalism- they were smart enough to make it this far, I would wager they are smart enough not to write down blatantly dumb responses.

The test, however, will likely filter out good people who are bad at putting their thoughts into written words and get anxious with these sort of tests.

Ive always had the philosophy that more isnt usually the answer, the answer is fixing what already exists and making it better, rather than just adding more barriers.

 

[Lawpy]

This is a very troubling thread. What many of you fail to realize is
1) The "administrators" of which you speak so tenderly are generally physicians who have dedicated their lives to medical education
2) What makes residents have problems in residency? Issues like ethics, communications, unprofessionalism. Not lack of medical knowledge. Can we KNOW if these methods are proven to work? Is there data? Who knows. But despite interviews, we see residents who have problems and anything that programs to do that may predict who may have difficulty is worth considering.

Uh, what do you think the purpose of clinical years is?

 

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

Uh, what do you think the purpose of clinical years is?

If you read the threads in the general residency forum, it is almost never medical knowledge or at least not just medical knowledge that gets people non-renewed or removed.

 

[calivianya]

If you all (meaning admin) want to have a quick and dirty professionalism/attitude filter, just filter for past work experience. Paid work experience, not the crap ERAS tells people to log as work experience. People that have been yelled at by customers and/or bosses have generally figured out how to keep the offensive behavior to a minimum, because getting your electricity turned off or getting evicted from your apartment sucks. Randomly check a reference or two to see if the person's honest about not being fired from their jobs. Look at it like any other company looking at job applicants - multiple short jobs are a red flag if not explained by having to move for school/SO's work/whatever, longitudinal work experiences lasting a couple years or more are good.

I have yet to have a problem classmate who's worked for a living at some point prior to med school. All the people that I've found insufferable just lived at home with mommy and daddy, or had mommy and daddy write a check for all of their living expenses.

No CASPer necessary. Just interview people with actual work experience first and fill in the holes with the wild cards with no work experience later.

 

[Lawpy]

If you all (meaning admin) want to have a quick and dirty professionalism/attitude filter, just filter for past work experience. Paid work experience, not the crap ERAS tells people to log as work experience. People that have been yelled at by customers and/or bosses have generally figured out how to keep the offensive behavior to a minimum, because getting your electricity turned off or getting evicted from your apartment sucks. Randomly check a reference or two to see if the person's honest about not being fired from their jobs. Look at it like any other company looking at job applicants - multiple short jobs are a red flag if not explained by having to move for school/SO's work/whatever, longitudinal work experiences lasting a couple years or more are good.

I have yet to have a problem classmate who's worked for a living at some point prior to med school. All the people that I've found insufferable just lived at home with mommy and daddy, or had mommy and daddy write a check for all of their living expenses.

No CASPer necessary. Just interview people with actual work experience first and fill in the holes with the wild cards with no work experience later.

This makes the problem worse since it forces gap years before med school or even forces premeds to gameify work experiences.

 

[Goro]

This makes the problem worse since it forces gap years before med school or even forces premeds to gameify work experiences.

Considering that for tons of medical students, residency is their very first job. A gap year is not a bad idea.

 

[Lem0nz]

At the end of the day we need some way to sort people. We are losing options for that, not gaining them. I am neither supporting nor arguing against Casper but the reality is we’re going to get more of this as medical schools continue to peel away some grading.

You don’t have to like “objective” grading or agree with it but once you’ve sat on the side of the one doing the interviewing you realize that almost every letter of rec is the ‘top ten %’ they’ve ever worked with which is silly and not true.

Programs have different needs and different **** they need to sort. Some need people who can pass their boards because their academic coaching is week or they’re new or a few failed in prior years and not getting put on probation is their biggest issue. Others have culture issues and need hard working not socially inept people to fix them. Some are genuinely good and want to perpetuate that or try to find ways to be more inclusive.

None of our existing tools including clinical year grades and letters, in person interviews, or STEP scores solve all of these or even necessarily any single one. So it’s natural for programs to pilot new tools and try new things.

Also likely none of it will work because so far none of it has really worked.

My fellowship used Absite scores to predict ability to pass the surg onc boards as their most important element of program success because they didn’t have a strong curriculum built for that. In retrospect having just taken my surg onc written boards, I can definitively say that my Absite score did not accurately reflect my ability to study in fellowship which was a totally different environment and that the test for surg onc was in fact WILDLY different from the Absite. So… it is what it is. It’s still the best tool when we have literally nothing else. I can definitely see someone failing their onco boards if they struggled year over year with Absite. I don’t necessarily think 75th%ile would predict success on boards for my particular fellowship though. As has been said here, there is some value in the extremes.

 

[Mass Effect]

Considering that for tons of medical students, residency is their very first job. A gap year is not a bad idea.

This. I've said before, I'll say again, being a doctor should never be someone's first job. Most graduate programs require work experience. Why clinical medicine has decided it won't is a mistake.

 

[deleted1100659]

That was a shock to me too when I entered into medical school, I was one of the few who had a job previously held a job, I worked three different jobs prior to medical school. It was probably my work ethic that carried me through medical school, because I had pretty much no baseline knowledge when i started.

The ones that struggled and failed out, tended to be the ones that went to big name universities, no work experience, and werent paying for medical school (so had less incentive to do well). Fear of debt is always a good motivator to pass your classes, lol.

 

[Med Ed]

This. I've said before, I'll say again, being a doctor should never be someone's first job. Most graduate programs require work experience. Why clinical medicine has decided it won't is a mistake.

Haven't you heard? Undergrad is a waste of time aside from the pre-reqs, fourth year of medical school is a waste of time. Someone needs to find a way to get all the pre-reqs taken care of in high school, skip undergrad, do 15 months pre-clinical, 12 months clinical, and land a residency before being able to legally drink. All performance evaluation would done by scored standardized testing. Then we'll finally have the healthcare workforce we deserve.

 

[calivianya]

This makes the problem worse since it forces gap years before med school or even forces premeds to gameify work experiences.

I don't think this is a bad thing at all, tbh. The people I've seen struggle the hardest are the youngest ones and the ones without work experience. It would be doing the students a favor to have a little extra maturity and ability to handle disagreements with colleagues professionally before getting into a career with some of the highest stakes if you mess up (i.e. someone dying).

Haven't you heard? Undergrad is a waste of time aside from the pre-reqs, fourth year of medical school is a waste of time. Someone needs to find a way to get all the pre-reqs taken care of in high school, skip undergrad, do 15 months pre-clinical, 12 months clinical, and land a residency before being able to legally drink. All performance evaluation would done by scored standardized testing. Then we'll finally have the healthcare workforce we deserve.

We had one in my class who turned 21 during our first year - literally a full 10 years younger than me at the time. The scariest thing was her lack of critical reasoning abilities. I don't think I really comprehended the whole "your brain isn't fully developed until 25" thing until I studied with her and had to work really hard to get her past concrete thinking and just straight memorization and into actually understanding how things work by reasoning them out. She could quote the powerpoints word for word but when I asked her to rephrase them in her own words and tell me what it meant, not what it said, she had a lot of trouble. She got better by the end of second year, but still. Imagining a whole class of those gives me the willies.

 

[Mass Effect]

I don't think this is a bad thing at all, tbh. The people I've seen struggle the hardest are the youngest ones and the ones without work experience. It would be doing the students a favor to have a little extra maturity and ability to handle disagreements with colleagues professionally before getting into a career with some of the highest stakes if you mess up (i.e. someone dying).



We had one in my class who turned 21 during our first year - literally a full 10 years younger than me at the time. The scariest thing was her lack of critical reasoning abilities. I don't think I really comprehended the whole "your brain isn't fully developed until 25" thing until I studied with her and had to work really hard to get her past concrete thinking and just straight memorization and into actually understanding how things work by reasoning them out. She could quote the powerpoints word for word but when I asked her to rephrase them in her own words and tell me what it meant, not what it said, she had a lot of trouble. She got better by the end of second year, but still. Imagining a whole class of those gives me the willies.

Just wait til you see them hit the wards as Dr. Intern at 25.

 

[Ganon]

Issue with CASPer is this:

It is a terrible replacement for being able to interview effectively. It exists because lazy individuals in academic programs (and now residency, apparently) would like more "objective" ways of figuring out who is crazy instead of the actual way: talking to the people and conducting a strong interview.

I understand all the complaints about there not being time/adequate training for how to conduct an interview, but if you want the best residents/med students/whatever, put a little effort into their selection.

CASPer is the ANTITHESIS to the "holistic review" that has been lauded and repeated for years now. It's a way of paring back applicants. Even though we know the outputs are dubious, it will end up being used to rank in some fashion.

Just my opinion as a grumpy old man.
Any med school that required CASPer as part of the secondary got thrown in the trash during my app year, and I have no regrets. It's evidence of a low level of expertise that could bleed into other realms that I'm not comfortable with. Again... My opinion alone.

 

[deleted1081396]

How many programs do y'all think will adopt it by next year?

 

[Proudfather94]

I took this when I applied this cycle. All I had to do to get 4th quartile was talk like a politician. "If they did this and it was because of this I would do this, but if they did it because of this I would do this instead".

 

[MDMechEngr]

I will say that this test will not help you if you do well, but it may hurt you if you don't do well. LOL.

 

[deleted1081396]

Is there an updated list of programs that are doing this this year?

 

[DameJulie]

Is there an updated list of programs that are doing this this year?

Asking +1 for the upcoming 2023 match season please.

 

[wysdoc]

Asking +1 for the upcoming 2023 match season please.

To check for sure, go to the "Take Altus" web page and go to the tab at the top "Dates and Fees".
Select the box "Graduate Medical Education - Residency Training" and you will see all the programs asking for these tests.
For 2022-2023 there are 20 residency programs asking for it:

Albany Medical College
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
Boston Medical Canter
Creighton University
Emory University
Henry Ford Hospital
Mayo Clinic Florida
New York University
NYU Langone
St. Mary Mercy Hospital
Tufts Medical Center
UC Irvine
U Florida Gainesville
U Florida Jacksonville
U Miami
UTRGV
U Utah
U Vermont
U Wisconsin Madison
Wright State University

If you are applying for Ophthalmology, there is a separate box and there are 120 Ophthalmology residencies asking for the tests.
Not gonna copy/paste all those!

 

[DameJulie]

To check for sure, go to the "Take Altus" web page and go to the tab at the top "Dates and Fees".
Select the box "Graduate Medical Education - Residency Training" and you will see all the programs asking for these tests.
For 2022-2023 there are 20 residency programs asking for it:

Albany Medical College
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
Boston Medical Canter
Creighton University
Emory University
Henry Ford Hospital
Mayo Clinic Florida
New York University
NYU Langone
St. Mary Mercy Hospital
Tufts Medical Center
UC Irvine
U Florida Gainesville
U Florida Jacksonville
U Miami
UTRGV
U Utah
U Vermont
U Wisconsin Madison
Wright State University

If you are applying for Ophthalmology, there is a separate box and there are 120 Ophthalmology residencies asking for the tests.
Not gonna copy/paste all those!

Thank you very much for the list!

 

[Lawpy]

To check for sure, go to the "Take Altus" web page and go to the tab at the top "Dates and Fees".
Select the box "Graduate Medical Education - Residency Training" and you will see all the programs asking for these tests.
For 2022-2023 there are 20 residency programs asking for it:

Albany Medical College
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
Boston Medical Canter
Creighton University
Emory University
Henry Ford Hospital
Mayo Clinic Florida
New York University
NYU Langone
St. Mary Mercy Hospital
Tufts Medical Center
UC Irvine
U Florida Gainesville
U Florida Jacksonville
U Miami
UTRGV
U Utah
U Vermont
U Wisconsin Madison
Wright State University

If you are applying for Ophthalmology, there is a separate box and there are 120 Ophthalmology residencies asking for the tests.
Not gonna copy/paste all those!

Geez what is with PDs valuing a typing test so highly?

I know med schools screwed up by prioritizing a typing test over the AAMC backed preview but this is insane

 

[Mr.Smile12]

Bumping up this thread as we are in the new residency application cycle.

Are there any more updates on the list of residency programs that require Altus and which components (Casper, Duet, Snapshot)? Duet and Snapshot are relatively newer pieces that are focused on an applicant's fit with the program. Thanks @wysdoc for the initial list.

 

[Wahkoon]

The list of programs is a little too long to write out - easier to just check here since it varies by specialty.

Current count is…
IM - 3
Surgery - 3
Anesthesia - 17
OBGYN - 28
Ophtho - 120

 

[Mr.Smile12]

The list of programs is a little too long to write out - easier to just check here since it varies by specialty.

Current count is…
IM - 3
Surgery - 3
Anesthesia - 17
OBGYN - 28
Ophtho - 120

Wow... I didn't realize that ophtho was so on board... tell everyone about our Casper/SJT forums!

 

[Riven_1KV]

Wow... I didn't realize that ophtho was so on board... tell everyone about our Casper/SJT forums!

I believe it's a requirement this year for a pilot program. There's an AUPO document floating around but I can't seem to find it. They include the CASPer nonsense in their 2022 Match Timeline.

https://aupo.org/sites/default/files/2022-05/Residency%20Match%20Timeline%202022-2023.pdf

Ironically requiring it strips away the only tangible benefit of requiring Altus Suite, which is that less people will apply to your program. There is no evidence that any of Altus's products actually work. Ad-Conned: A Critical Look At CASPer

 

[Mr.Smile12]

I believe it's a requirement this year for a pilot program. There's an AUPO document floating around but I can't seem to find it. They include the CASPer nonsense in their 2022 Match Timeline.

https://aupo.org/sites/default/files/2022-05/Residency%20Match%20Timeline%202022-2023.pdf

Ironically requiring it strips away the only tangible benefit of requiring Altus Suite, which is that less people will apply to your program. There is no evidence that any of Altus's products actually work. Ad-Conned: A Critical Look At CASPer

Thanks! It seemed a bit peculiar why so many of those residencies were going with Altus, but it definitely makes sense. Link: Altus Assessments Used for Residency Match 2022-2023 | Association of University Professors of Ophthalmology won't get me access to the Guide (broken link). But if you have a critical number of your programs requiring it, it becomes a de facto gateway requirement. That's where the battle between Casper and PREview is situated.

I can't wait for a follow-up critique of PREview. Has someone contacted the author???

 

[Mr.Smile12]

Please share with your peers, especially those in medical school or residency about the HPSA/SDN SJT poll, hopefully you saw the banner with the link to the poll.