Brown study shows med students over-applying to residency programs

Brown professors study shows med students over-applying to residency programs
Brown professors study shows med students over-applying to residency programs
Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University professors recently published research showing that U.S. medical students typically apply to more than 40 residency programs in their last year of medical school, despite a high likelihood of employment.
 
“There’s been this inexorable intensification of the residency selection process such that it’s basically taken over the fourth year of medical school,” Brown Professor of Pediatrics Dr. Phil Gruppuso, a former associate dean for medical education, said. “It so dominates student time and energy during the fourth year that it’s become very difficult to do any curriculum planning.”
 
According to the study, published by Gruppuso and Dr. Eli Adashi in Academic Medicine, medical students in the U.S. averaged 45.7 applications for residency programs in 2015, with that figure rising even higher for competitive specialties.

While rates or acceptance to residency programs have fallen since the mid 1970s, the study contends that the drop reflects growing numbers of foreign applicants and applicants who are not medical students. M.D. graduates in the U.S. receive 1.5 offers on average, and their likelihood to be matched to their top choice of programs has landed between 50 and 60 percent consistently since 1997.
 
“At the end of the day, if you are a U.S. medical school graduate, you are virtually assured of getting a job,” Gruppuso said. “There’s an irrationality about it that is different than when most people are looking for a job and are running the risk of not finding one.”