Family medicine and the Match

[zontal]

I was reading this week's/month's edition of the American medical news and realised that FP was the least matched specialty by % with Anesthesiology the most. What seems to be the problem with FP programs attracting new interns and the possible solution to this problem. Some FPs have suggested that the breath of FP needs at least a 4 yr training, and others think FP should be better combined with another area example-Fam/Ped, Fam/Em, Fam/Psych etc. Your opinion.
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[deleted6669]

I'm guessing it has to do more with the # of programs out there vs the number of people who want to go into fp. with a lot of folks dreaming of derm, anes, im subspecialties, etc there just currently isn't the demand for the # of slots that currently exist. I imagine this goes in cycles like any other specialty. a few years ago it was much easier to get into anes for example. the top programs (ventura county, etc) probably never have a problem filling their slots. I would love to do an EM/FP 4 year residency but currently there are only 3 (detroit, NYC, ohio...all 5 year DO programs)and all in areas I don't want to live.there is an ongoing discussion of the future of family medicine at the AAFP website www.aafp.org

 

[BellKicker]

emedpa,

I think there are enough candidates out there. Apparently, a lot of FP programs didn't rank enough applicants. Most programs probably filled within a couple of days of scrambling.

I think the problem is that so many seats go to IMGs because AMGs don't want to go into primary care these days (I can say this without sounding like a nazi because I'll be an IMG one day). Many of these IMGs go into FP because they can't get anything else; many of them want to specialize and hope to match into another specialy the following year.

Also, many IMGs pre-match and then rank 0 programs in the match. This might make it hard for the PDs to gauge how many candidates to rank.

I'm selfish, btw. I don't mind lots of open seats when it's my time to apply.