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Could you please explain the difference between categorical, transitional and prelim. internship years?
Categorical is when the first year of the residency program is incorporated into the entire residency. While the first year is still more generalized than subsequent years, it is also usually geared a little more towards your chosen specialty. This title is also important for residency matching because if you are applying to categorical programs, then you do not need to worry about securing a internship elsewhere (it is included in these residencies). An example would be most emergency medicine programs, family medicine programs, some anesthesia programs, etc.
Prelim and transitional internships are needed when your specialty requires a separate internship year outside of their specific program. In both cases, during the residency match process you need to apply to two types of programs, the specialty you are interested in (radiology, some anesthesia programs, Derm, etc) and an internship year (transitional or prelim). While these are separate in the match process, it is quite often possible to attain placement at the same institution for both (so in essence you are doing you entire residency at one place).
There are classically two types of prelim years, medical and surgical. In each case, you function exactly the same as an intern that it going into that particular specialty (medicine intern or surgical intern). Regarding transitional year programs, these less strictly adhere to the traditional first year completed by medicine residents. They usually consist of several months on some sort of inpatient or consult medicine rotation as well as electives outside of medicine (like radiology or path). These tend to be less surgically oriented. From these descriptions you could deduce that transitional year programs are usually more tolerable than prelim year programs.
Hope this helps.