Dermatology Back-up Plans

[banana_pancakes]

As a student applying for dermatology, I know the field is extremely competitive and would love to talk to students who didn't match dermatology but matched either during preliminary year or after a research fellowship.

I am interested in knowing what the match rate is for preliminary years. I wondered if the match rate is low and the majority of students proceed to do a research fellowship.

I noticed that most of the research fellowship options that had been posted on SDN require a PGY-1 year beforehand. If you find out you didn't match in March, would you still be able to apply to a research fellowship? Or is a research fellowship something you can only do after PGY-1 or if you decide early in MS4 after not receiving an adequate number of interviews?

Lastly, I wondered watch the match rates are like for students who do complete a post-graduate research fellowship and what that process is like. Would love to hear some anecdotal stories/advice!

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[asmallchild]

As a student applying for dermatology, I know the field is extremely competitive and would love to talk to students who didn't match dermatology but matched either during preliminary year or after a research fellowship.

I am interested in knowing what the match rate is for preliminary years. I wondered if the match rate is low and the majority of students proceed to do a research fellowship.

I noticed that most of the research fellowship options that had been posted on SDN require a PGY-1 year beforehand. If you find out you didn't match in March, would you still be able to apply to a research fellowship? Or is a research fellowship something you can only do after PGY-1 or if you decide early in MS4 after not receiving an adequate number of interviews?

Lastly, I wondered watch the match rates are like for students who do complete a post-graduate research fellowship and what that process is like. Would love to hear some anecdotal stories/advice!

I was able to match as an MS4 so some of the questions I will have to defer.

There are some questions I can still answer:

I am interested in knowing what the match rate is for preliminary years.

Generally very high unless you apply to very few or the very cushy. If you don't match derm but still want to proceed with graduation and a PGY-1 year, you'll typically want to match at as rigorous a prelim medicine year as you can.

If you find out you didn't match in March, would you still be able to apply to a research fellowship? Or is a research fellowship something you can only do after PGY-1 or if you decide early in MS4 after not receiving an adequate number of interviews?

You can. There are research fellowships that require a PGY-1 year to be completed first (these are typically paid positions) and that you'll apply for during your PGY-1 year. There are also "unofficial" research fellowships that target students and are typically unpaid. In these instances, you'll want to defer graduation, take on a research year as a student, and then go through the match process again. In general, the second option is considered more favorable but you'll need to structure your rank order list accordingly.

Lastly, I wondered watch the match rates are like for students who do complete a post-graduate research fellowship and what that process is like. Would love to hear some anecdotal stories/advice!

In general, it's favorable. This is a self-selecting group because if done correctly, students who complete a post-graduate research fellowship will target a fellowship that has a good history of taking its own research fellows into its linked derm residency or at the very least matching the research fellows into an outside derm residency program consistently. Sometimes this can occur outside of the match. Most of the time, the research fellow will need to re-enter the match. It should be noted that there is no guarantee of a match after a research fellowship of course.

 

[banana_pancakes]

I was able to match as an MS4 so some of the questions I will have to defer.

There are some questions I can still answer:



Generally very high unless you apply to very few or the very cushy. If you don't match derm but still want to proceed with graduation and a PGY-1 year, you'll typically want to match at as rigorous a prelim medicine year as you can.



You can. There are research fellowships that require a PGY-1 year to be completed first (these are typically paid positions) and that you'll apply for during your PGY-1 year. There are also "unofficial" research fellowships that target students and are typically unpaid. In these instances, you'll want to defer graduation, take on a research year as a student, and then go through the match process again. In general, the second option is considered more favorable but you'll need to structure your rank order list accordingly.



In general, it's favorable. This is a self-selecting group because if done correctly, students who complete a post-graduate research fellowship will target a fellowship that has a good history of taking its own research fellows into its linked derm residency or at the very least matching the research fellows into an outside derm residency program consistently. Sometimes this can occur outside of the match. Most of the time, the research fellow will need to re-enter the match. It should be noted that there is no guarantee of a match after a research fellowship of course.

Thank you for your thoughtful replies!