Thoughts on CT fellowship ranking

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radsgoal

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So now that the season is mostly done as far as interviews (for me anyways!....I know a few more programs are interviewing this week and next but pretty sure done after that) any thoughts on how competitive it was this year? I saw a pretty small applicant group concentrated among the top programs (Duke, CCF, Texas Hearts, etc) where I saw the same people over and over and am ranking 6 programs after all is said and done.

How do the other applicants or anybody who knows anything about the process feel about competitiveness? Is 6 enough? Is everyone ranking a lot of places because of the match? Thoughts in general welcome!
 
Rads -

Let me ask you a question: when does the rank list open? I can't seem to get the SF Match site to allow me to rank.

To answer your question: very impressed with CCF. It'll be my number 1.
 
As with residency, I think that you're best served simply ranking fellowship programs in order of preference. I don't think that anyone can give you really great insight into how this new CT fellowship match process will shake out. My fellowship program director was quite involved in setting this up and even he's a bit uncertain. Just from talking to various people, it seems that, as expected, more people are applying to more places and programs in turn are interviewing more candidates.

Re the question of whether or not ranking six programs will prove adequate, who knows? You might be better served thinking of it not just in terms of the number of programs but also the number of available positions (i.e. some programs are much larger than others, some have set aside a significant proportion of spots for internal candidates, etc...).

Finally, its not as if you can really apply to more places at this point anyway.
 
Big Dan - Yeah, super impressed. Trying to decide between them and Duke and its pretty much a toss up at this point.

Lush - I agree. I guess my point is I interviewed at 9 places but really only want 6 of them. Not sure if I'm willing to forego a years salary to train at a place where I feel the training isn't great and/or the experience isn't worth it. My thinking is that if I got interviews at most of the top programs I interviewed at I should be at a favorable position in the applicant pool to match within my 6 programs (which have a combined 40 spots). For example - CCF had 60ish interviewees after 110ish applicants so I figure that alone puts me in a favorable/upper half of applicants. Maybe this is paranoid 4th year med student rank thinking haha but its a bit stressful after spending tons of money and time traveling to all these places. Do you think theres any logic to my mindset or should I simply pour myself a nice glass of rye on the rocks and chill out?
 
radsgoal said:
Big Dan - Yeah, super impressed. Trying to decide between them and Duke and its pretty much a toss up at this point.
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Those are great programs (at least so I heard :-( ). I just hope I'm able to scramble in somewhere if I don't match. If this CT fellowship thing doesn't work for me, I'm fully ready to work and go on with my life (and my life is great )
 
HumidifiedMoistureExchange said:
Those are great programs (at least so I heard :-( ). I just hope I'm able to scramble in somewhere if I don't match. If this CT fellowship thing doesn't work for me, I'm fully ready to work and go on with my life (and my life is great )
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I've applied to Pain. This is exactly my thinking. Partly it's a defense mechanism but also the way I feel. Pain doesn't match until October, but if I find a GOOD job (partnership track and a good variety of cases, not all supervision) before then, then I may take the bird in the hand. We'll see.
 
The fact that CT is a competitive anesthesia fellowship is testament how poor the demand is for anesthesiologists.

DOes anyone realize that the cardiac surgery volume has done down almost 40 percent in the past 10 years. Cardiac surgical fellowship spots are going un filled. THe cardiac surgery volume at a busy cardiac place is maybe 400. MOst places are doing 100 -150 hearts.

My take, the job market is poor and folks are doing fellowships.
 
NOTJOHN said:
The fact that CT is a competitive anesthesia fellowship is testament how poor the demand is for anesthesiologists.

DOes anyone realize that the cardiac surgery volume has done down almost 40 percent in the past 10 years. Cardiac surgical fellowship spots are going un filled. THe cardiac surgery volume at a busy cardiac place is maybe 400. MOst places are doing 100 -150 hearts.

My take, the job market is poor and folks are doing fellowships.
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Although the volume is down, I personally like big complicated cases, sick patients and TEE skill and certification can be taken out of the heart room. Also I plan to go into PP but, should I consider going into academics from PP, having a fellowship, IMHO, would make me more desirable, as opposed to PP --> academics without subspecialty training.
 
GoBroncos! said:
if i match into a place i kinda like, but end up finding a job instead, am i bound to go to the fellowship? Anyone know what the implications if you didn't take the position
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I would think it is a contract and like any old contract has out clauses and the like.

In my opinion pain is a better fellowship as far as job prospects are concerned.
 
Well in the end, gotta do what you love right?

Question - I've received a phone call/email or two from a few programs I interviewed at stating in different words that they liked me alot and would rank me highly/in the top half of the list. How much weight is in this?
Part of me thinks this is part of the match game, especially in the first year of a match where the programs will tell everyone they want them to avoid not filling. But I also do want to tell the program I want to end up at that I want to be there without having to lie to other programs and tell them the same thing. All in all I probably wont do that as I just wasn't raised that way but it makes me wonder how sincere it is and how much its just 'part of the game'?
Anyone else in the same boat?
 
Will you be doing the Lambeau leap or the Dirty bird when you catch it?
 
Hello, 😀

I am a fairly new member to this forum.

I am going for the CTA fellowship match (Starting 2014)

Now that we submitted the final ROL, there's nothing else to do than just wait.

Looks like you guys are in better position than me regarding CTA fellowship match.

I had 5 interviews, ranked only 4, but only have 13 positions for the match (Including all poss. position among ranked programs & Excluding all int. candidate spots)

I wish you guys & me a very good luck for the very first CTA fellowship match !
 
Did not match either. Whats the deal with scramble? any options?
 
Did not match either. Scramble is on Wednesday, trying to get a hold of Wells Fargo to find out when. My hope is that programs were not aggressive enough in ranking applicants and the same top-notch x number of residents were ranked by all the programs for the (number significantly more than x) spots that actually made it to the match.


EDIT: SFmatch.org will be sending an email around 3pm (probably PT?) explaining the process.
 
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I have a feeling there's going to be a significant number of available positions. I think the new match system, programs over playing their hands, and not a significant increase in the number of applicants from previous years, is gonna result in a boat load of unfilled spots from a wide array of programs (just my opinion).

Ill see how things shake out this week. But if I don't secure a spot, ehh, I'll do fine in PP.
 
I called a few programs today that I interviewed at, none had any "open" spots. But we'll see what happens Wednesday. There are a few scenarios out there but I'm not speculating. Lets hope for an organized and smooth process and I sincerely hope everyone gets what they want
 
I knew I wouldn't match and so I took the day off in order to try to scramble.. I started calling at 8am and just finished calling every program. They all told me that they filled all their spots and had no spots available.. These were program coordinators I was talking with. So I guess we'll see on Wednesday if they lied to me or not..
 
Damn, I'm really sorry to hear so many of you are scrambling. I ended up with my first choice and feel very lucky especially after reading this board today. Wish you guys the best of luck with the scramble and I hope you're right about all the open spots. Would be interesting to hear what programs didn't fill once all the spots are spoken for.
 
MasterHypnotist said:
I wish everyone good luck tomorrow!
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There is no tomorrow scramble :-( email from sf match

Dear Cardiothoracic Fellowship Match Participant,

There will not be posted vacancies tomorrow morning. All vacancies have been filled.

We are sorry for this announcement but it is up to programs to decide if they wish to post vacancies and at this time they have filled
positions from existing unmatched applicants that applied to their program. Match statistics will be published by June 30th.



Sincerely,


SFMatch Staff
[email protected]
http://www.sfmatch.org
415-447-0350
 
So from this email, my understanding is that seems like even if there was any vacancies, the programs already contacted the people that were on the secondary list to fill? Without going through the match scramble fest...I didn't know that's allowed. Either way, it just sounds like next year people are going to have to go to a lot more interviews in order to feel secure...a terrible déjà vu from residency application process.
 
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How would the programs know who had to scramble? If they have this info, why can't the applicant know which programs didnt fill? Seems like the deck is stacked against the applicants. Oh well, PP for me 🙂
 
The no-scramble (or the scramble-without-applicant-knowledge) seems really quite unfair; I'm sorry to see that's how it's played out if indeed that's true.

Lush - to support your point: I got an email saying there were 270 applicants this year, and my quick math counted 166 spots for CTA training on the SF Match website. I think SF Match is going to release Match data at some point this month, but it looks like around a 61% match rate if my counts are correct.
 
Abe said:
The scramble is really shady; can't believe they did it that way.
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Yeah, makes the NRMP look better and better. Either way, I feel your pain.

I hear private practice ain't so bad though.
 
Abe said:
The scramble is really shady; can't believe they did it that way.
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To be honest, it was demoralizing considering this was the 1st year of the match and we were the "guinea pigs" for the process. And then to change the scramble policy at the last minute, made it seem like the people running the match were either small time operators in over their heads or crooked activity going on in the back room. I would think the latter IMO.
 
HumidifiedMoistureExchange said:
To be honest, it was demoralizing considering this was the 1st year of the match and we were the "guinea pigs" for the process. And then to change the scramble policy at the last minute, made it seem like the people running the match were either small time operators in over their heads or crooked activity going on in the back room. I would think the latter IMO.
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Like everything in life it is all about power and leverage. Sounds like it was a seller's market so the programs did as expected. Nice little lesson here.
 
bigdan said:
The no-scramble (or the scramble-without-applicant-knowledge) seems really quite unfair; I'm sorry to see that's how it's played out if indeed that's true.

Lush - to support your point: I got an email saying there were 270 applicants this year, and my quick math counted 166 spots for CTA training on the SF Match website. I think SF Match is going to release Match data at some point this month, but it looks like around a 61% match rate if my counts are correct.
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Maybe I am missing something, but that sounds as if there were more applicants than spots. So of course there would be people without a match if all the spots filled during the match process. This is not the main residency match with a gillion people and lots of spots per program. Most programs have two or three fellows, and that is it...you interview 10-15 people, rank them, and even if you go all the way to the bottom of the list, you still fill.

It is pretty easy to not have a scramble when you have that many more applicants than spots.
 
So sometimes it's better to be lucky than good or maybe good at being lucky. I was able to secure a CT fellowship spot for July 2013 at an INCREDIBLE, AMAZING AWESOME program. After not matching and subsequently no available scramble, I started cold calling places asking about availability for 2013 and 2014 (it worked out that I'm a CA3). The 1st place I called had an unexpected open spot and that got the ball rolling. I interviewed and was subsequently offered a position, which I gladly accepted.

I have to admit a few things worked out in my favor (being a CA3, not signing a contract to a job or locums assignment, being on vacation this week, getting calls from faculty, etc). I honestly didn't know what the next step for me was going to be (reapply, PP, relocation, etc). I was ready to give up on the CT fellowship but my friends encouraged me to give it one last try to find a position, and like the Hail Mary that was thrown to me in the end zone I previously spoke about, this time I was lucky enough to catch it this time.

Good luck to you guys and gals out there that didn't match. The PD at my fellowship 🙂love🙂 said their rank list went one person lower than the number of spots available at the program. He said it seemed like the match this year was rough and people from no name to brand name programs didn't match. He wasn't sure if this was a one year anomaly or a trend we may see in the future. Either way my advice would be to not give up until the fat broad is finishing her last note. I'm living proof that a little luck could go a long way. :luck:
 
killerleaf said:
Maybe I am missing something, but that sounds as if there were more applicants than spots. So of course there would be people without a match if all the spots filled during the match process. This is not the main residency match with a gillion people and lots of spots per program. Most programs have two or three fellows, and that is it...you interview 10-15 people, rank them, and even if you go all the way to the bottom of the list, you still fill.

It is pretty easy to not have a scramble when you have that many more applicants than spots.
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Killer -

I understand your line of thinking, and you may indeed be right. My post reflected my understanding (or misunderstanding) of a previous post in which HME copied an email from SF Match that said something like "all vacancies have been filled by currently unmatched applicants". If true, that made it seem to me like there were indeed open spots after the match took place, and the programs went about filing those openings on their own, independent of the scheduled scramble. If that happened, I think that sucks...sorta takes the "match" out of it, and definitely takes the "scramble" out of it.

All that said, I could be wrong; wouldn't be the first time, and won't be the last.
 
I think being available for 2013 really helped HME (Not positions that were even part of the match/proposed scramble process). There will probably be some openings in the Spring next year as matched applicants change their mind and secure other options.
 
bigdan said:
HME -

CONGRATS! Kudos for sticking to it!
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Thanks man. I think I may have not matched because programs may have thought I may change my mind and not do the fellowship after working in PP for a year (but the same can be said for ca2s that apply and say screw fellowship, I'm gonna work). But I really lucked out and won't have to do locums for a year.
 
The NRMP has been at it for many years and has worked hard and made several changes to try to keep people from "working" the system. It was probably not realistic to think that the SF match would be able to get the scramble done fairly in its first year. I suspect their were only a handful of open spots and those programs probably had a flood of calls and just did what they know from the old NRMP scramble: see a qualified candidate and snatch them up. Sucks for those left in the cold, but the math tells me there could not have been very many open spots (I would guess 5 or less if I was a betting man).
 
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