Advice on Prelims

[YNWA]

In order to keep my young family together, I need to match my prelim year and Rad Onc residency in the same city. Like many applicants, I will be applying broadly to Rad Onc programs. Will I need to apply to several prelim year programs in each city? Could I just shoot for one really crappy and undesirable prelim per city (ie programs where you need to work really hard)? Any recommendations for specific undesirable programs?
I appreciate any advice.

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[MHotep]

You should probably try to interview at more than one prelim program per city. Prelim programs can be competitive, especially if there are only a few positions at the program where you are interviewing. If you are a competitive Rad Onc candidate, then I would say that your magic number is 10-15. (If you interview for a total number of 10+ prelim positions in any given city you are almost guaranteed to match for prelim in that city.) You can probably get away with interviewing at only one program if that program happens to have 10+ prelim positions.

 

[medgator]

You should probably try to interview at more than one prelim program per city. Prelim programs can be competitive, especially if there are only a few positions at the program where you are interviewing.

I'd say that about transitionals, not the prelims, unless we are talking about a small city here. It's not unsual for many academic centers to have unfilled prelim surg and medicine spots during the scramble.

Transitionals on the other hand are usually filled during the match, and there are few of those spots left during the scramble.

 

[arthurdent]

You should probably try to interview at more than one prelim program per city. Prelim programs can be competitive, especially if there are only a few positions at the program where you are interviewing. If you are a competitive Rad Onc candidate, then I would say that your magic number is 10-15. (If you interview for a total number of 10+ prelim positions in any given city you are almost guaranteed to match for prelim in that city.) You can probably get away with interviewing at only one program if that program happens to have 10+ prelim positions.

10 per city sounds like a really high # to me...

Based on previous years NRMP results, your magic number for Rad Onc is 10-15 - hard to believe that prelim slots would be harder to come by than RO slots. If you're interviewing at 10 prelim programs for every RO interview you get, that's gonna be a lot of time in a suit...

Maybe there's some reason why you can't, but have you considered doing your prelim in the city you currently live in? You only have to move once, and your interview itinerary gets a lot simpler. Depending on how big your home medicine program is, I'm guessing that, as a highly competitive candidate, they'll be more than happy to take care of one of their own and find you spot...

 

[YNWA]

Thanks for the advice. My wife is a cancer researcher doing her post-doc now and will be starting a new position wherever I match for Rad Onc. Since she will need to move to that city right away, I can't just hang back one more year at my home program. (Maybe the current lack of grant money available will eliminate our problem all together.)

Are there any resources to figure out how many prelim spots are being offered at specific programs? Applying to programs with many spots would seem to be the right strategy.

 

[deleted254819]

I was actually in a similar position to you last year, in that I was couples matching with my wife (internal medicine) but didn't have the time or resources to interview for prelims in every city in which I interviewed for rad onc programs. My solution was to interview for prelims/TY's in the cities where I could get to the interivews, and for the rest go with the plan that I would scramble into a prelim (likely gen surg) if I matched a rad onc slot in that city.

I checked with my dean of students about the feasibility of this, and was told that on Match Monday (when you login to see if you did/didn't match), along with a list of which students didn't match, the med schools get informed which prelim/advanced program each of those students matched into. As it worked out, I indeed matched into a rad onc program in a city where I didn't interview for any prelim slots, and found out where I was going that Monday such that I could scramble accordingly, which I did into a general surgery prelim program. While it's no cush TY year, I'm actually really liking it, it's way more fun than rounding for 6 hrs every morning on internal medicine, and this way I got to be in the same city as my newlywed wife for our intern year.

FYI, virtually every city I looked at had unmatched general surgery prelim slots open through the scramble, and the program i matched at was pumped just to have a prelim fill the spot who had a matched program for the next year (and wouldn't try to work their way into a categorical spot). So getting a spot in the same city if you're willing to do surgery wouldn't be a problem.

All that said, it was pretty stressful dealing with all the uncertainty, but in hindsight theres's virtually no way it wouldn't have worked out. Feel free to hit me up with any specific logistics question/concerns you may have... and GOOD LUCK

Thanks for the advice. My wife is a cancer researcher doing her post-doc now and will be starting a new position wherever I match for Rad Onc. Since she will need to move to that city right away, I can't just hang back one more year at my home program. (Maybe the current lack of grant money available will eliminate our problem all together.)

Are there any resources to figure out how many prelim spots are being offered at specific programs? Applying to programs with many spots would seem to be the right strategy.

 

[Pewl]

I really apologize if this is hijacking the thread, but in a situation like they listed above, how would you tailor your personal statements accordingly? I know that they say you don't need to modify much between your prelim and rad onc personal statement, but are there any other things that should be mentioned in a situation like this?

 

[MHotep]

10 per city sounds like a really high # to me...

Based on previous years NRMP results, your magic number for Rad Onc is 10-15 - hard to believe that prelim slots would be harder to come by than RO slots. If you're interviewing at 10 prelim programs for every RO interview you get, that's gonna be a lot of time in a suit...

The number "10" that I was referring to are positions, not programs. For example if a prelim program were interviewing for 10 spots, that would suffice. Interviewing at 10 programs per city would be CRAZY.