Competition Hype?

[euhsa]

I understand that anesthesiology has gotten competitive due to its recent popularity. In fact, I personally know 20 people from my class of close to 300 students who are applying at the time. However, I really doubt that there is a need for interested applicants to start worrying about competition. Anesthesiology is not a specialty like orthopedics or radiology. In short, I guarantee that even the less competitive applicant from an osteopathic or an American allopathic school will get a residency in anesthesiology. (Take a chill pill, poster of "Please choose something else.") He or she may not be able to match at Hopkins or Mass General but they should be able to match at programs that may not have the nationally recognized names as the aforementioned.

As an average applicant from an osteopathic school myself, I am confident that I will match at a major university program.

By the way, I have gotten interviews from SUNY-Stony Brook, Westchester-NYMC, UCLA - Harbor, UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson and NYPH-Columbia. ( Westchester is pretty funny. They will not allow me, a DO student, to do a rotation at their hospital, but they were the second program to invite me for an interview.)

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[bigfrank]

Yes, you're right. It all goes back to board scores, ego, etc. All fields have a specific personality type, and the god-complexes, quite simply, do not choose anesthesiology. It's getting more competitive but serious applicants shouldn't worry.

 

[beezar]

Originally posted by euhsa
In short, I guarantee that even the less competitive applicant from an osteopathic or an American allopathic school will get a residency in anesthesiology. (Take a chill pill, poster of "Please choose something else.") He or she may not be able to match at Hopkins or Mass General but they should be able to match at programs that may not have the nationally recognized names as the aforementioned.

You may have misunderstood the point of my post... the point is that many people who are applying for the match into anesthesiology this year often care little about what anesthesiology entails, but more about the lifestyle and money involved in anesthesia. Is it wrong for them to do this? No, but it limits the number of competitive spots/spots in general for those who really want to be well-trained anesthesiologists because they truly like anesthesiology.

If you pay attention to other posts on the anesthesia board, there is one thread where an aspiring radiologist all of a sudden recently has decided upon applying to anesthesia this year as well, being mostly concerned about lifestyle. I frankly think that is ridiculous, and unfortunately, in my experience, all too common.

As for people unmatching, etc. Anesthesia in the past has been a very competitive field, and by all looks of it, it is getting back to its previous competitiveness... only 57 unfilled spots for 2002.

But how competitive will it be this year? No one knows for sure, but this year, the number of applicants seems to have dramatically increased since last year. Of course, this is all anecdotal evidence, but for several US allopathic schools, the number of applicants have at least doubled, some tripled. (my school has more than tripled). If the number of applicants has even increased only by 1/3, it seems that not everyone will match.

If you look at the numbers in terms of who filled the spots for 2002, 904 are US allopathic (up from 713 the year before), 89 are from DO schools (down from 107), 98 are IMGs (down from 129), and the rest are miscellaneous, for a total of 1169 available spots (PGY1 and CA1). Of course, the number of available spots will likely increase this year, but probably not by much...

I personally am not too concerned about unmatching, as I think I am a relatively strong applicant. I am more concerned about matching where I would like to go, especially because I am applying to the couples match and my significant other is applying to a competitive field.

I think that concern about matching is relative... whether it's matching at a certain location, at a certain program, or matching at all. To make any guarantees about the match this year cannot be done, as it is all very much up in the air. We'll just have to wait after the match and see the numbers that NRMP releases. Good luck to you all!

 

[womansurg]

Originally posted by euhsa
As an average applicant from an osteopathic school myself, I am confident that I will match at a major university program.

By the way, I have gotten interviews from SUNY-Stony Brook, Westchester-NYMC, UCLA - Harbor, UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson and NYPH-Columbia. ( Westchester is pretty funny. They will not allow me, a DO student, to do a rotation at their hospital, but they were the second program to invite me for an interview.)

That last part about Westchester is too, too ironic.

I remember, Anesthesia was really reeling when I was graduating....I think maybe because of the increasing role of cRNAs, people were worried about finding work after graduation. There was a guy in my class who applied to surgery programs, couldn't get an interview, hurriedly changed to anesthesia and ended up matching at Harvard.

 

[Arch Guillotti]

Bump. For historical reference to the thread that SIGMACHIDUDE started.

Note the date the OP posted and the comments that follow.

And a big shout out to womansurg, wherever she might be!

 

[RxBoy]

Haha! Great find Arch! When I was reading that, I didn't pay attention to the date.

I swear if the date wasn't on there, I would of never known it was written in 02. It still sounds identical to posts 6 years later.