ERAS, in plastic surgery, has programs offering preliminary plastic surgery (eg: Albany Medical Center, NY), advanced plastic surgery, integrated plastic surgery and categorical plastic surgery.
1) how is prelim plastic surgery (for 1 year) different from prelim general surgery?
2) Whats the difference between advanced and integrated and categorical?
3) What does one do after finishing 1 yr prelim plastic surgery?
I can't speak specifically about about Albany's program, in general the training follows one of several routes:
1) |Designated Prelim plastics where you spend 2-3 years under the auspices of the general surgery department, doing most of the same rotations as the other residents with the exception of doing some plastics rotations and other required electives (ie, radiology, etc.). So in answer to your first question, really the only difference is how much plastics you do and if you have any electives that the general surgery prelims might not have. Otherwise you can expect to spend most of your year doing the same things they do.
2) Advanced - means you match for a position starting after PGY 1. Thus most programs have you match to the Prelim year (or more) as a Designated Prelim with the department of general surgery and then advance match (usually at the same time - just like its done with urology, etc.) into plastics.
Integrated is the match into Plastics right out of medical school. It can be designed as above - ie, you spend 1-3 years with the general surgery department and then transfer into full time plastics after your 2nd or 3rd year. So Advanced refers to the type of position whereas Integrated refers to the type of program and match process.
Categorical means that you are no longer a prelim, you have a position which is the full track designed to end up being BE/BC.
3) If you haven't matched into an Advanced position in Plastics, then your options are to either hope to get a Categorical general surgery position, finish that and match into an Independent Plastics program or to keep applying for advanced positions in Plastics.
Hope this helps.
