Residency Match: A Case of Supply/Demand

Residency Match:  A Case of Supply/Demand

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0rtf4YQYds

 

During the 1990’s at Bayfront Medical Center in St. Petersburg, FL, the OB/GYN Residency would interview about 50 candidates for 4 residency slots.  The program would often reach their 32nd rank to fill its spots, and sometimes would have to “scramble” by phone to fill all their positions.  This occurred when the number of residency slots exceeded the number of applicants (1).  Now that program ranks 50 candidates and fills their slots by their 10th rank.  Medical students afraid of not matching are applying to an average of 47 residency programs each.  You can see why the numbers of applications have sky-rocketed.

 The difficulty for lesser candidates is how to “breach” the hurdle of their “lower” quantitative scores (even though they are fully qualified DOCTORS).  They are no longer medical students and not yet residents. They have no “umbrella” of supervision and malpractice coverage with which to demonstrate positive attributes to a residency program through an Observership. 

 Most residency programs have started using voicemail, rather than answering thousands of phone requests. Desperate candidates are trying to get an appointment to meet in person and state their case. The residency phones go directly to voice mail. Their email requests are dealt with by generating an automatic response that says they are “filled”.  I was told that an unmatched doctor graduate was escorted out of the residency office by SECURITY at a Miami hospital, when he tried to request an audience in person!  He was told, “You should not have come here.  You should have phoned or sent an email!”

  No doctor who has achieved the right to attend and graduate from medical school should be “eliminated” before having the right to complete the last step of training.  None of these unmatched doctors can work without at least 1 year of post-graduate training (unlike a Physician Assistant who can work immediately after graduation).  Clearly, the number of residency slots needs to increase, YESTERDAY!

(1)   page 6, http://www.nrmp.org/match-data/main-residency-match-data/http://www.nrmp.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Main-Match-Results-and-Data-2016.pdf

What happens to unmatched doctor grads?

http://nomatchmds.blogspot.com/