What to do and know as civ-deferred SOAP

[upontherocks]

So I was civilian deferred and ended up having to soap. There were no soap spots for what I was going into so I only managed to soap into a TY spot. I informed the HPSP people and they pretty much said I can apply in June for the next JSGMESB for categorical or go GMO. I'd like to know what my options really are, and what I should do or think about to not make this situation worse, or how to make the most of this.

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[SirGecko]

What service are you in and is it realistic to think you will match the specialty you were going for?

 

[upontherocks]

air force, tried for anesthesia, and i thought so. my school and soap interviews were surprised i didn't match. had 230s/240s step. only red flag was i had to remediate my family med rotation since i got a poor evaluation.

 

[backrow]

air force, tried for anesthesia, and i thought so. my school and soap interviews were surprised i didn't match. had 230s/240s step. only red flag was i had to remediate my family med rotation since i got a poor evaluation.

The office wasn’t lying. Those are your options.

The reality is that you are almost certainly going to be a GMO next year. You are at a severe disadvantage for matching into anesthesia in a military program directly for PGY2 because you won’t be at a military hospital. You should pay close attention to the GMESB announcements and apply for anesthesia again. Apply for both military and civilian and try and make connections at your hospital’s anesthesia department (for either a good letter by October or if granted civilian again to see about matching there).

Failing to match this year does not bode well for you to be selected for civilian again though, so set your expectations to be a GMO, but the door isn’t completely shut to residency.


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[SirGecko]

100% what Backrow said. If you have any connections with the military anesthesia residencies you should also try to foster them now to the best of your ability. The military application comes up real quick intern year so you don’t have a lot of time to make an impression or improve your application.

Remember if you don’t already have research that is free points for the military match you are leaving on the table. So do something quick if you don’t already have something. Something like a single case report might not get published in a definitive journal nowadays but there are places that publish small teaching cases daily and that’s a pretty easy way to get that done. Don’t know what the equivalent is for anesthesia but the ACR has a daily online caseinpoint series that our residents submit a lot of content to.