what's considered a good fellowship match?

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AntonFreeman

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this might be a dumb question but what's considered a good fellowship match for residencies? ratio of cards/gi matches? caliber of fellowship programs that residents get into?

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There really isn't a right answer for this. Competitive matches are GI, Cards, Onc, allergy, pulm. However not everyone wants one of these. Good matches are those outside of the tier of the IM program.

Also, you will quickly realize after looking at a couple of match lists that most IM placed tend to send their graduates to fellowship programs in their same caliber. Maryland will send their people to mainly mid-tier places. Hopkins to upper tier places, etc.
 
I looked at the match list and decided myself if I felt the program was matching adequately. Was there good representation through the fields or was it predominantly one field? Secondly and most importantly, were there an adequate amount of matches in the field I was interested in (GI) and were they above the tier of the program as instatewaiter noted? I talked to the residents on interview day and at my specific program I matched into/ranked first they were like "yeah, matching to what you want/getting a job where you want is not a problem". I had a really good feeling, where other places were like "yeah we had three matches this year! yay us!". Anyway, that's all!
 
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I agree with poopybutt that your future program should match people into the specialty you want. However, there is a detriment to having A LOT of people match into the specialty you want. If there are tons of people from your program matching into a single specialty that you want, you are going to also be competing with these people for interviews at the same programs. My former residency traditionally sends 15-20 people into cards each year. I didn't get interviews at a few programs because all of those people applied to the same programs. Programs don't want to just fill their program with guys from one residency.
 
I would look at the general trends of a programs match list rather than the small details. If you see that a good amount of matches were at solid reputable programs, then I think that's a good indication. Some people get caught up on whether people match at big name top-tier places, but those programs aren't necessarily the best for certain specialties or career interests. I know lots of people at top IM programs that aren't interested in those types of programs or careers. You should also take outliers with a grain of salt. For example, if you see a list with predominantly mid-tier programs but one top tier program, you have to figure that individual likely wasn't a typical resident and maybe they were a MD/PhD, did a chief year, had a connection, etc. Another factor is location of the matches, do most people stay in-house, match in the same region or are geographically spread out, and what are your interests in terms of fellowship location. For example, if you think you'd want to do fellowship in California, you might favor California programs, same could be said for NY.
 
I'm going to give my mid-tier grain of salt here. This depends entirely on your career goals. If you want to be an academic cardiologist at a high powered research and referral center, then name and such does matter and it starts from the bottom up (top tier residency -> top tier fellowship -> etc). However if your goal is to become a strong clinician so that you can enter practice, then you need to look for a place which will train you *well*. It mattered less to me how many papers each fellow published and how much research funding each fellow gets, and more how many echos do we read, cath volume, nuclear study volume, cutting edge technology, etc.

Some big top centers have the best of both worlds. Many don't. So don't feel compelled to gear your career goals in an academic way just because people say that's what you "should do".
 
I agree with poopybutt that your future program should match people into the specialty you want. However, there is a detriment to having A LOT of people match into the specialty you want. If there are tons of people from your program matching into a single specialty that you want, you are going to also be competing with these people for interviews at the same programs. My former residency traditionally sends 15-20 people into cards each year. I didn't get interviews at a few programs because all of those people applied to the same programs. Programs don't want to just fill their program with guys from one residency.

Holy cow - how big was your program???
 
A good fellowship match is a program that has a track record to get you where you want to be. This is super subjective and depends on so much like interest in an academic med career, location, prestige, interest in private practice or track record for placing people into certain fields. Some match lists as stated above, were very misleading. I'd notice on my interview day the program would have a few solid matches but on second look those residents were either MD/PhDs, chiefs or came from that institution for medical/undergraduate. If your considering a very competitive fellowship (GI cards) or moderately competitive fellowship (allergy, heme/onc or pulm/crit care), I would specifically ask during your interview where people placed and how many didn't match that year. If you meet senior residents who are not going into fellowship right after residency but plan to try to determine why. Finally, if you are dead set on a certain field try to attend a program that takes a ton of their own into fellowship. Matching at your home institution is always your best chance at matching. Best of luck.
 
A good fellowship match is a program that has a track record to get you where you want to be. This is super subjective and depends on so much like interest in an academic med career, location, prestige, interest in private practice or track record for placing people into certain fields. Some match lists as stated above, were very misleading. I'd notice on my interview day the program would have a few solid matches but on second look those residents were either MD/PhDs, chiefs or came from that institution for medical/undergraduate. If your considering a very competitive fellowship (GI cards) or moderately competitive fellowship (allergy, heme/onc or pulm/crit care), I would specifically ask during your interview where people placed and how many didn't match that year. If you meet senior residents who are not going into fellowship right after residency but plan to try to determine why. Finally, if you are dead set on a certain field try to attend a program that takes a ton of their own into fellowship. Matching at your home institution is always your best chance at matching. Best of luck.

Just a point... Simply because people take a year off between fellowship and residency does not mean there's something wrong with the program or their fellowship match. We had a number of folks do that this past year. The reasons were varied - we had a busy residency and they wanted a year to recuperate, they need to save up money, they want to keep in sync with a spouse in another residency, they want to see if they like hospitalist medicine prior to doing fellowship, etc. All of the people who did that the year prior matched their top 1-3 fellowship in multiple competitive fields.

This is becoming more prevalent and I think more accepted. So this alone should NOT be a detractor.
 
Just a point... Simply because people take a year off between fellowship and residency does not mean there's something wrong with the program or their fellowship match. We had a number of folks do that this past year. The reasons were varied - we had a busy residency and they wanted a year to recuperate, they need to save up money, they want to keep in sync with a spouse in another residency, they want to see if they like hospitalist medicine prior to doing fellowship, etc. All of the people who did that the year prior matched their top 1-3 fellowship in multiple competitive fields.

This is becoming more prevalent and I think more accepted. So this alone should NOT be a detractor.

I think they were only suggesting to be aware of those who take a year off to boost their application beyond that of a typical applicant coming from that program. I too know of people who took a year off for reasons you mentioned and match well, however I'm also aware of people who came from low/mid-tier programs match at competitive places only to find out they did a chief year, research year, additional fellowship, etc., which is outside the norm of a typical IM resident. I think looking at the general trends of a program's match list gives you a rough idea of the caliber of fellowship programs that you could expect to match into if you trained at that particular IM program. I would ignore the outliers, those few people who match on the seemingly high-end(for reasons mentioned previously) or on the low-end, as they may have chosen a less reputable program for personal/professional reasons.
 
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