Why are there two matches anyway?

[Mass Effect]

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[FONT=arial,helvetica] If the AOA wants DOs to apply to DO residencies, why is the DO match in February? Many people hold out for the MD match because they know they'll be pulled from that if they match into a DO program.

If your top two choices happen to be two allo programs and your third choice is an osteo program, you're going to hold out for the allo match. Then you might very well match into your fourth choice (an allo program) because you ranked it third since you missed your chance at the osteo match.

I think the AOA is losing some solid applicants who would gladly rank a DO program over an MD program..

 

[Oxer45]

[FONT=arial,helvetica] If the AOA wants DOs to apply to DO residencies, why is the DO match in February? Many people hold out for the MD match because they know they'll be pulled from that if they match into a DO program.

If your top two choices happen to be two allo programs and your third choice is an osteo program, you're going to hold out for the allo match. Then you might very well match into your fourth choice (an allo program) because you ranked it third since you missed your chance at the osteo match.

I think the AOA is losing some solid applicants who would gladly rank a DO program over an MD program..

Its because AOA wants first dibs on DO students. As a med student, you may find this hard to believe, but graduating med students are valuable. How valuable? Approx 200k, since that's how much in loan forgiveness some places + military will give you if you practice in those locations. Also if DO and MD matches were one match, less people would choose DO residency since most people (DO and MD students alike) prefer to be in large academic institutions for residency.

 

[DocEspana]

The amount of people "holding out" is overstated, i would suggest to you.

 

[Mass Effect]

The amount of people "holding out" is overstated, i would suggest to you.

[FONT=arial,helvetica]I don't know about that. Supposedly, there were a lot of unfilled spots in the osteo match this year (just what I heard; I haven't seen the list) and yet 25% of the DOs who applied for the allo match didn't match. I just wonder if even half those people would have matched in the osteo match had the matches been held together.
.

 

[IDBasco]

and yet 25% of the DOs who applied for the allo match didn't match.

How do you know this?

 

[painmd87]

How do you know this?

http://www.nrmp.org/data/datatables2012.pdf

Review page 4, table 4.
Students/Graduates of Osteopathic Medical Schools
Active Applicants 2,360 100%
Matched PGY-1 1,764 74.7%
Unmatched PGY-1 596 25.3%

Factually, 25% of DO applicants did not match in the 2012 MD match. However, the data leaves an incomplete story because that number above includes all DOs who applied, including previous grads and re-applicants. It fails to tell a deeper story in not including scrambled grads.

Someone with more time on their hands than I pretend to have can add up the number of DO graduates and compare the numbers with the AOA + NRMP results. Probably going to end up within the margin of error compared to previous years, when you consider people who chose not to enter the match, matched outside, did research, etc. Infer as you wish.

 

[DocEspana]

http://www.nrmp.org/data/datatables2012.pdf

Review page 4, table 4.
Students/Graduates of Osteopathic Medical Schools
Active Applicants 2,360 100%
Matched PGY-1 1,764 74.7%
Unmatched PGY-1 596 25.3%

Factually, 25% of DO applicants did not match in the 2012 MD match. However, the data leaves an incomplete story because that number above includes all DOs who applied, including previous grads and re-applicants. It fails to tell a deeper story in not including scrambled grads.

Someone with more time on their hands than I pretend to have can add up the number of DO graduates and compare the numbers with the AOA + NRMP results. Probably going to end up within the margin of error compared to previous years, when you consider people who chose not to enter the match, matched outside, did research, etc. Infer as you wish.

A math/stats challenge? Sounds like a job for me!

Too bad there is no way I'm going to take time off from my one day of total relaxation to do that.

 

[IDBasco]

http://www.nrmp.org/data/datatables2012.pdf

Review page 4, table 4.
Students/Graduates of Osteopathic Medical Schools
Active Applicants 2,360 100%
Matched PGY-1 1,764 74.7%
Unmatched PGY-1 596 25.3%

Factually, 25% of DO applicants did not match in the 2012 MD match. However, the data leaves an incomplete story because that number above includes all DOs who applied, including previous grads and re-applicants. It fails to tell a deeper story in not including scrambled grads.

Someone with more time on their hands than I pretend to have can add up the number of DO graduates and compare the numbers with the AOA + NRMP results. Probably going to end up within the margin of error compared to previous years, when you consider people who chose not to enter the match, matched outside, did research, etc. Infer as you wish.

Interesting, I didn't know that info was out yet.

I'm one of the lucky 75% this year and only know one person personally that didn't match MD that wanted to. That person scrambled into a decent program.

Edit- I guess that is just PGY1 info. In which case, I am one of the unlucky 25% as I matched PGY2 and will do a DO intern year. So, I'm not sure how that changes things for everyone.

 

[painmd87]

A math/stats challenge? Sounds like a job for me!

Too bad there is no way I'm going to take time off from my one day of total relaxation to do that.

If you want to take the time, by all means please do. I'd love to see the results. As a forewarning, there's not going to be a solid solution to what you get. You're going to get school-reported numbers of enrollees, graduates, etc. There are simply too many variables/unknowns to get a meaningful answer -- grads who do OMM fellowships, who get research grants, students who got sick, who had kids, who burnt out, who had family issues, who were terrible students and didn't match, mis-reported information, etc.

I'm willing to bet that if you took each school's published match results, you would find that they don't add up to what the AOA + NRMP release. There's just a sampling margin of error that occurs in anything like this.

The important thing is that among American MD + DO grads, almost everyone who seeks a residency finds a residency spot. Be it ACGME, AOA, scramble, military, pre-match, OMM "fellowship", whatever. Yes there are exceptions, but for the vast, vast, majority of graduates, you end up somewhere. If you end up where you want to end up... that's a question I can't answer.

 

[BobBarker]

This is tangential, but OMM "fellowships" are the stupidest thing of all time. Is is like flushing $200K down the toilet when you factor in a year of lost attending salary and additional student loan interest.

 

[scotchtapetest]

Interesting, I didn't know that info was out yet.

I'm one of the lucky 75% this year and only know one person personally that didn't match MD that wanted to. That person scrambled into a decent program.

Edit- I guess that is just PGY1 info. In which case, I am one of the unlucky 25% as I matched PGY2 and will do a DO intern year. So, I'm not sure how that changes things for everyone.

As mentioned, those figures are PGY1 only spots; There are people who matched into awesome PGY2 spots and for various reasons didn't match or rank PGY1 spots and will do a DO intern year instead...

Unfortunately there are no clear data to figure this out but based on the facts stated above we know for a fact that the overall ACGME match rate for DOs is above 75% and as we all know ACGME + AOA match rates are 87-89%...

If someone has more accurate/complete data, please let us know....

 

[bsa]

[FONT=arial,helvetica] If the AOA wants DOs to apply to DO residencies, why is the DO match in February? Many people hold out for the MD match because they know they'll be pulled from that if they match into a DO program.

If your top two choices happen to be two allo programs and your third choice is an osteo program, you're going to hold out for the allo match. Then you might very well match into your fourth choice (an allo program) because you ranked it third since you missed your chance at the osteo match.

I think the AOA is losing some solid applicants who would gladly rank a DO program over an MD program..

The AOA is actually getting more solid applicants by having their match occur before the ACGME one. No matter how good of an applicant you may be, you always worry about not matching because you are entering the MD match as a DO. This fear is what keeps a good number of strong DOs in AOA residencies.