<p>I’m confused by your response afan, do you support this? I never said that it wasn’t happening, but why would we want it to happen more?</p>
<p>Malignant residencies: It seems med students choose their fields, and then residencies within the field. If a residency at a particular hospital has a bad reputation, it will be ranked lower than others, but people who want to train in that field will still apply. </p>
<p>The most abusive FIELDS are typically surgical residencies, which have fought tooth and nail against the notion of limiting resident work weeks to 80 hours. This is an issue at surgical residences everywhere, although some might be more abusive than others. Even the most prestigious places have found themselves in trouble for ignoring the rules.</p>
<p>Residency choice:
It has long been the case that medical students have been avoiding primary care fields and focussing on higher paying specialties. If they increase the number of graduating doctors, while keeping flat or reducing the number of specialty residency slots, then this will mean even more people who want specialties but go into primary care because that is all they can get.</p>
<p>All,</p>
<p>What would be the general strategy for selecting a residency program? Do students usually stick to one specialty for all 10 programs or do they add a couple of safeties from a less competitive one? I posted a thread on Matching Statistics a few days ago. No one other than mmmcdowe had any interest to discuss this topic. </p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/pre-med-topics/888900-matching-statistics.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/pre-med-topics/888900-matching-statistics.html</a></p>
<p>For instance, would students be able to access their previous year residency enrollment record to decide whether they should try some hot programs if they are not in the top 10-20%? Would medical schools publish a preliminary program selection intention so that students can choose the programs according to their class rank? It seems to me that 20% no match for NYU students is too much. What options would they have now? </p>
<p>Thanks</p>
<p>I don’t know the stats for NYU. Twenty percent would seem very high. People who apply for highly competitive fields, like radiology, do have to hedge their bets, depending on the strength of their records. Top students can apply only to radiology programs, but spread their applications among the top programs and some lesser ones. Students who are borderline to make it into radiology at all have to apply to other specialties to make sure they get jobs somewhere. If they are applying for much less competitive positions- family practice for example, then it is just a matter of covering enough programs. </p>
<p>Those who do not match look at the list of programs with open slots and contact them independently. Both the programs and the candidates are highly motivated to fill these slots quickly. Everyone will end up with a position, but often not what they would have wanted.</p>
<p>In general, people who have longer rank order lists are more likely to match. This may mean including less favored residencies or fields in the list. This becomes a trade off between having the decision settled on match day, and ranking a place or field where you don’t want to go.</p>
<p>[NRMP:</a> Impact of Length of Rank Order List](<a href=“http://www.nrmp.org/res_match/about_res/impact.html]NRMP:”>http://www.nrmp.org/res_match/about_res/impact.html)</p>
<p>afan and All,</p>
<p>Thanks for the explanation and the NRMP link. It looks like that only 858 students (6%) were not matched in 2009 for the primary list. Therefore, the success rate is high. Hopefully, the 20% non-match rate at NYU is not quite accurate. In the mean time, I found a link showing some interesting statistics.</p>
<p>Charting Outcomes in the Match
Characteristics of Applicants Who Matched to Their Preferred
Specialty in the 2009 Main Residency Match </p>
<p><a href=“http://www.nrmp.org/data/chartingoutcomes2009v3.pdf[/url]”>http://www.nrmp.org/data/chartingoutcomes2009v3.pdf</a></p>
<p>The matching rates are:</p>
<p>Plastic surgery: 53%
Radiology: 86%
Dermatology: 70%
Neurological/Orthopaedic surgery : ~80%</p>
<p>Therefore, US medical school students are well informed on the matching process.</p>
<p>Wow. The plastics rate is insanely low considering the caliber of students who apply. </p>
<p>To bad that those numbers will go down when everyone ruhes into Plastics.</p>
<p>I doubt everyone is going to rush into plastics… I certainly am not.</p>
<p>Why not? </p>
<p>All statistics point in that direction…</p>
<p>Lower match rates, higher USMLE scores, not affected by health reform all point to Plastics’ high desirability. They bank SERIOUS $$$ as long as they dont get sued too often.</p>
<p>Lower match rates and higher USMLE hardly sounds like a good time to dive in. The numbers don’t show a huge flood of plastics applicants. Look how many applied to the Match, ~200. Even if that doubled I wouldn’t call it a flood. The caliber of students really has nothing to do with the rate, just the cap on residency spots. I have no interest in plastics, an extra 100k would not get me to switch my goals to do plastics.</p>
<p>No doctor makes the amount of money it would take to get me to switch to plastic surgery.</p>
<p>For hedge fund money I probably would do it for a year, save the money, then switch back to something useful.</p>
<p>Most docs like what they do. They may complain, bitterly, about insurance companies and malpractice lawyers, but they like practicing medicine. People who choose their careers primarily based on projected income are likely to be the unhappy docs. Although the money overall is good, the major reward is the job itself. The money is as good as it needs to be to attract a large cadre of very talented people. There are no doctors holding signs “Will practice medicine for food.”. </p>
<p>Yes, there is a huge income difference between a busy heart heart surgeon and a busy primary care doc. But not many, if any, of the primary care docs wanted to be heart surgeons.</p>
<p>But there’s your trouble.</p>
<p>What if the plastic surgeon view themselves as Pure business? You give me money, I make you pretty sounds like a business to me…</p>
<p>If put in that regard, people will become plastic surgeon; they have a HUGE monopoly that the population accepts. Premed students will realize this oppertunity to cash in and get their share of economic profit. </p>
<p>Money makes us happy and people are greedy… Doctors are no exceptions.</p>
<p>But not everyone’s priority in life is money. Some people don’t want to enter fields that don’t interest them, no matter what the salary. Shocking, I know!</p>
<p>I mean, I wouldn’t go into plastics. I wouldn’t go into ibanking. I wouldn’t be the CEO of a huge company even though I’d bring home lots of dollahs. Because those things, to me, are about as fun as poking forks into my eyeballs. And I don’t know if all the money in the world could make me want to poke forks into my eyeballs for 8+hrs a day, 5+ days a week, for the next 40+ years of my life.</p>
<p>The MAJORITY of people place huge emphasis on money… Especially the poor. </p>
<p>I want you to try something: ask a homeless person does money make the world turn around. Keep in mind a hobo here makes more money than most people in the world.</p>
<p>I’m well aware of money “making the world turn around”, I’m well aware that people who don’t have money work hard to try to attain it, and that life is a hell of a lot easier when you have money. Thanks, though. I grew up in an inner-city neighborhood and attended inner-city public schools, I’m no stranger to what poverty looks like or what a ***** it is to be stuck in. </p>
<p>That being said, not everyone bases their career decisions on what will make them the most money. Plenty of people choose the options that don’t pay extremely well because it’s what they want to do. Just like doctors who choose primary care instead of specializing, or people who become high school teachers, social workers, people who work for non-profits, etc etc etc, and many of them are good at what they do because they are passionate about it.</p>
<p>We all want, and to an extent need, to make enough money to live comfortably. I’m not denying that. But there are people out there who enter professions where they know that they’ll never be wealthy. Obviously everyone would choose a big paycheck over a small paycheck, all other things equal, but some people would rather have a job they enjoy and that pays modestly than a high paying job they hate. And good thing, otherwise my poorly-funded public education would have been a lot worse.</p>
<p>I mean, you must know these things, it seems silly to have written 3 paragraphs stating the obvious. But you’re completely obsessed with making massive amounts of money–in fact, it’s what nearly all of your posts are about. And that’s just fine if that’s what you believe will make you happy, but just because you’re motivated by a big salary doesn’t mean everyone is.</p>
<p>I think you underestimate how important it is to enjoy your job. You are going to spend 8-10 hours a day at your job. 8 hours sleeping. And only 8 hours (at most) of downtime where you can spend all that money you’re making. So, I argue that entering into a specialty you enjoy is as important as making a lot of money. Let’s face it: plastic surgery is pretty polarized. You either find it rewarding or you don’t. There are not that many med students clamoring to become plastic surgeons but proportionally, yes, the competition is intense. Most of us, however, do not want to enter into such a specialty regardless of how it pays.</p>
<p>A very talented students do no need to get into a medical school to get rich. Some of the extremely talented students do not even have the patience to finish colleges to become rich and famous. </p>
<p>Half of the top students did not even get in one of the plastic surgery residencies. It is prudent to get a few safeties as back-up. Otherwise, the acceptance rate for a 2nd year rematch may be even lower.</p>
<p>Jason, pre-med and medical student desires don’t create residency spots in plastics. The plastics field recognizes its monopoly and intentionally puts pressure on to keep it at a low number. Even if the government forced their hand and made extra spots, you have to have plastic surgeons to staff it. Let’s assume that all plastic surgeons eventually become as money hungry as you seem to think, why would they then take a paycut to go into academia at all? In the end it is their decision on how many spots are viable.</p>
<p>If maximizing income is the driving goal, then it is foolish to go into medicine. You can make a good income as a physician, but people in the financial industry make many times more. A top financial analyst, trader, or portfolio manager can receive a bonus for one year greater than the lifetime earnings of a high income plastic surgeon. The median annual compensation at many investment firms is in the millions. Compared to that plastic surgeons are like kindergarden teachers, both with earning levels for which a Wall Street quant would not roll out of bed.</p>
<p>It is difficult to imagine the government increasing the number of plastic surgery residency positions. The perceived shortages are in primary care, not cosmetology. One could make a good argument to cut the slots to the number needed to supply burn care, management of cancer patients, reconstruction of injuries, etc. If one reduced the slots to the extent that surgeons use their training to open beauty parlors, then more medical school graduates would end up practicing medicine.</p>
<p>Have u guys considered that maybe some people are better at Science than Econ/ math?</p>
<p>For those people how can they get rich? Medicine is the way to go…</p>
<p>Plastic is the obvious choice to become rich in light of the health reform cuts.</p>
<p>As an attorney (no longer practicing law) and the son of a doctor, I think I have some unique insight. Med field is definitely improving (in light of necessary reform), while many, if not most, of my attorney friends are considering leaving the legal field. It is a miserable lifestyle. I could not wait to get out of private practice. My close friend from undergrad graduated top ten in his law school class at a top 10 law school. He got a “great” job with a big firm making lots of $$. He was miserable (as are nearly all my similarly situated friends). If you have even an ounce of creativity in you I stongly encourage you to consider a career other than law. You’ll hate it. Consider what it takes to like the field. You Ned to be a boring misanthrope who cares, not about justice, but profit. I know I didn’t want to be surrounded by those people. Sure, I don’t make as much money NOW, but I’m a LOT happier and in the long run I’ll be more successful because I like what I’m doing.</p>