@78023467350 @Wolvvs @Weihua
Hi you three- So addressing all your points. Yes gen surg is competitive for IMGs in general but it is also a smaller applicant pool, i.e. not many applicants each year interested (at least from our school) generally year to year 4-5 maybe apply off the top of my head, so hard to gauge exactly how competitive since such a small pool. Yes prelim matches listed are not ideal but many of them get a spot the next year. Can't speak to exactly why those specific applicants didn't match categorical. I really don't know enough about the surgery ins and outs, your best bet is to talk to the OCS clerkship director for surgery (who also happens to be a really nice guy and very supportive of our students wanting to do surgery but he's not the PD)
Yes it is correct that Ochsner gen surg residency has historically not been as friendly to UQO students that other departments like IM, Anesthesia, Peds, maybe even rads? have been which basically fill half their classes with UQO grads or close to. Off the top of my head maybe 2 of our grads have matched at Ochsner for gen surg in total (don't quote me on this but this is what I remember). More UQO grads have matched Ortho at Ochsner than Gen surg lol.
Wolves is correct that Ochsner GME and the medical school (OCS) are completely separate entities and the school doesn't have much leverage over the residency programs.
That being said Weihua is also correct that all students will get at least a courtesy interview at Ochsner in whatever field they are applying to, the GME dept at least gives us that courtesy. The school also does their best to get people in house if they can- match rate and all, but this is more so in the less competitive programs as listed above, although arguably anesthesia/rads is still pretty competitive in general but Ochsner does take a number of those applying each year.