2017 Match List analysis - Part 2 of 3
So in our strongest specialty at UMKC (in terms of higher level of exposure to IM, esp. at the Years 3-6 level), which is Internal Medicine, ON AVERAGE our students matched into middle-tier institutions, maybe strong middle-tier. In the past, as was this year, we have had 1-2 students (usually the top students academically) in a particular year match into top-tier places like Mayo and Wash U for IM who know the performance of our graduates well in their residency – notice that both are in the Midwest (vs. top tier programs on the East Coast - Hopkins Osler, UCSF, Mass General, Brigham and Women’s, Duke, Penn, etc.). Keep in mind, in comparison to traditional graduates, we do 4 more months of inpatient Internal Medicine than everyone else, not including our weekly half-day ambulatory IM clinics for 4 years, at which other schools, at most, do one month of ambulatory clinic. I think this confuses people, since the amount of Internal Medicine education we get at UMKC is much more when compared to other medical schools, so you’d think that we’d be matching more people into top-tier IM institutions easily in this field, since we get the added exposure and maybe greater confidence that students at other schools don’t get heading into IM. Of course, it’s much more complicated than this, which I won’t go into here, but clearly just having more student curricular exposure is not the only factor in selection for the top-tier IM residency programs, or it’s not enough on its own to justify taking someone, as that’s what residency training is for, in which the learning curve is very steep and thus people catch up quickly. Most people going for IM tend to go with the intention of becoming subspecialists thru fellowship - Cardiology, GI, Heme/Onc, Allergy, etc. although people also can become hospitalists as well.
For Pediatrics, most students matched into middle-tier and lower-tier Pediatrics residency programs, with one top-tier program match. In Peds, the rate of subspecializing after residency is different, as the income factor discrepancy isn’t as pronounced in the Peds world from generalist to specialist, as it can sometimes be in the IM world.
We had a more people match into Psychiatry than in previous past match lists (middle-tier and lower-tier programs), but that’s probably more indicative of the particular class. More people matched into OB-Gyn this year, once again probably more indicative of the particular class, 1 match at UMKC the rest at other places. Our OB-Gyn home residency program doesn’t have too many home subspecialty fellowships, compared to other places, similar to our General Surgery program.
As is pretty typical for our student match lists, very few in total of our students go for surgery, whether that’s general surgery or the surgical subspecialties, for a total of 11 this year, as our school’s overall emphasis is much more on Internal Medicine (thru the Docent system) and primary care specialties (Family Medicine and Pediatrics). Our only surgical residencies we have at UMKC are General Surgery and Orthopedic Surgery. All others Urology, ENT, Plastics, Neurosurgery, you will be dependent on outside institutions for matching into that field.
In terms of the more ancillary specialties: Radiology, Radiation Oncology, Ophtho, Anesthesiology, Derm, PM&R, etc., many of the matches that were in the more competitive specialties in this list were those who voluntarily took time off from medical school to do research in that specialty in order to increase their chances of matching (although it’s not a guarantee). We do not have home residency programs in Radiation Oncology, Derm, and PM&R. Radiology, has gotten much less competitive over the years in terms of matching (it used to be almost on par with Derm in terms of competiveness), so accordingly, our match lists have opened up to more people being able to match into Rads coming from UMKC. 2016-2017 was the first year of the Interventional Radiology integrated specialty (vs. as as a subspecialty fellowship after completing a full Diagnostic Radiology residency). This is the first year I noticed in which no one in the med school class matched into the field of Ophtho, even with our home residency program in the field.
There were 6 who matched only into the first year of internship (preliminary year or transitional year), although two are military matches, to where often they are given military orders to only match into internship, at least initially. They tend to go thru the Military Match later for their actual residency. The others will apply again for the match later on this fall, to complete a full residency, whether in an advanced specialty or categorical specialty.