Has anyone switched into an EM spot from another residency? Did a PGY1 medicine prelim year last year, really loved my EM month - also loved it during my last month of medical school. Now i am a miserable PGY2 ophtho resident and really want to apply for a first year EM position.
Anyone have ideas on how i can go about applying?
I am assuming ERAS is out, because that is only for graduating medical school seniors right?
Regardless of what year post-grad you are, for you to apply for an EM residency or any other residency program in hopes to match in the upcoming match (march 2010), you would still have to apply via ERAS. Unless, you are applying for a position that opened up of-cycle and will be filled outside the match, but this rarely happens (usualy if someone is sick or has a severe event in the family and decides to forego the year).
I am in the same position as you, except I don't have a residency position currently. I did a year of prelim IM residency because I did not match into EM. Now I'm applying again for EM. Again with ERAS.
In your case, it is a bit more difficult as you have a contract with your current optho program. If you truly want to do a EM as your specialty and want it to be your career, you will need the same things that every other applicant needs (LOR from EM attendings, transcript, USMLE scores, etc.) sent to ERAS and apply to programs to be considered for the 2010 match. Plus, unless you want to be really shady, you will need to tell your current PD of your desires and what you are planning to do. Usually, if you are genuine enough in your passion (for EM in this case), most PDs will understand eventhough their job will be tougher finding a replacement for a PGY-3.
In your current situation, for EM PD's to consider you for an interview, they will need to see your drive and passion toward EM (in your personal statement) and how good of a possible EM physician you might be (from LORs from EM attendings hopefully from your med school EM rotation or your PGY-1 EM rotation). If you want to apply this year, I would suggest to get right on this and then you might get everything in on time to get reviewed because it takes weeks for LORs to get sent and then weeks to get uploaded while applications are being reviewed by programs as we speak.
My suggestion is to stick it out this year (your PGY-2 year) and see if maybe you gain back what drove you to apply into optho in the first place. Maybe, you will learn to love it and want to stick with it. If by the end of the year, you don't like it and are trully convinced that EM is for you, then by all means get everything together and apply for EM. Just my 2 cents.
Last year when I was applying for EM, one of the other applicants was a surgical intern (categorical) and after a few months she realized that she loved EM and told her PD that she was applying for EM and will not be there after the year. I'm not sure if she matched into EM.
Good luck my friend. I hope you are happy with whatever you decide to do.
