? No Match? prelim/trans

[heaven's door]

Hi,

Excuse the ignorance, but can someone who's gone through this please explain:

- Many people who need a prelim/transitional yr aim to go to a chill program.

- Many of the specialties that require prelim/trans (rad onc, anesth, ED, derm) are competitive

- When ranking programs, you rank where you would most like to go (cushier prelim program, etc)

What happens when you match prelim/trans but not a categorical program - does not doing a hard core prelim/trans year screw with your chances to match into a categorical program the following year? If so, can you get around this problem?

Thanks much for your replies!

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[carrigallen]

My $0.02: If you don't match for PGY-2, for the fields you listed, it is better to do a year of research in the field you are interested in, and then apply again.

For the fields you listed, it will be difficult to objectively reapply in the middle of a "hardcore" prelim. Unfortunately, I believe that if you do match into a prelim sans a PGY-2 match, you are required by contract to complete it. I could be mistaken though.