Another Day

I got an email from the webmaster at plastics2002. He might implement some exciting new things for those of us in the fellowship match. He might make a new section in his discussion boards for us to talk/gossip/groan about fellowships. That would be a most welcome development, because there is very little candid information about the fellowship programs available. I have been compiling a notebook of info on each fellowship, but info is hard to come by and of course you don't know who to trust.

The other thing he is thinking about doing is implementing a blog section on plastics2002. I have to say that I like the idea of a blog - imagine that :P
While I don't have much interest in reading blogs from the general public, I can't think of a more interesting thing to read than the online journal of other people going through this process.

Final thoughts for the day: What a great service plastics2002 is. You can log on there and check out candid information about programs. Granted a lot of the stuff on there is BS but its not all that hard to differentiate. You will at least get a hint if there are problems at certain programs. People on plastics2002 knew about Case Western's closing before the residents in that program did. Talk about scary. The other thing thats great about plastics2002 is that its sometimes very humorous. People get in fights on there and I chuckle. There are a lot of good examples of how not to think - ie arrogance. If you haven't already you should definately check it out. Its a fantastic resource.

Great News Today

I called the CAS today with a few questions and got some great news. First all my letters are in and my application is complete. They will send it out today. I also asked about the number of people in the match this year - and its a great number. Just over 200 are in so far. This is awesome because I was expecting there to be 300 or more. I suspect that there will be some straggelers coming in late but there won't be any more than 50 I wouldn't think. The other great news is that 3 more programs are offering spots!

Cleveland Clinic - Florida has 2 spots
Medical College of Wisconsin has 1 spot
Providence Michigan is also in but not sure how many spots. They are approved for 2 but who knows.

I will update my links on the side ASAP.

The CAS will be sending a letter out shortly notifying people about the new programs and the loss of UMDNJ. If they want to apply to the new programs its a $25 a piece fee. If they also applied to UMDNJ you can get the $25 dollars applied to another program.

I talked to a current fellow yesterday and he said he started hearing from programs in late November and Early December, which is much sooner than I had expected. AS it turns out the CAS is a running process, meaning that when your application is done they send it out. I was expecting that they would be send out together on Jan 17th, which they are not.

More intel.

Looked at the rest of the programs today. I snooped around the ACGME website and found 1 more program on probation. That program being on probation is a COMPLETE shocker. They sure as hell don't mention it anywhere on their website! I found one other program with "provisional accreditation". Not sure what that means, but it is a brand spanking new program.

Here are some interesting stats after combing through the ACGME website:
There are 10 programs that are 3 year programs, the rest are 2 years. There are 21 slots in the match for 3 year programs. There are 39 two year programs in the match. I have to guess at the number of slots in those, because a couple of programs are listed as combined/integrated programs and they don't specifically say how many independant candidates they take. When I have been able to figure that number out, it has always been 1 slot, so I will use 1 as the number for those schools. Here goes - there are ~82 slots open in 2 year programs. 7 of those 2 year slots are at programs on some sort of probation or "provisional accreditation."

Total number of spots based on looking at ACGME website and individual program websites: 121

Programs that are 3 years: UC - Irvine, UCSF, USC - LA, Emory, Loyola, UIC, Harvard, Minnesota, Duke, Penn, UT-San Antonio.

Programs that offer only 1 slot: UC-San Diego, Rush, Minnesota, Nebraska, Cincinnati (?), Pitt, UTSW (?), UVA (?)

Here is some more detailed info:
UAB: 2 years/2 slots
UC-Davis: 2 years/2 slots
UC-Irvine: 3 years/2 slots
UC-San Diego: 2 years/1 slot
UCSF: 2 years/3 slots
UCLA: 2 years/3 slots
USC - LA: 3 years/3 slots
U Miami: 2 years/3 slots
MCG: 2 years/2 slots
Emory: 3 years/3 slots
Rush: 2 years/1 slot
U Chicago: 2 years/2 slots
Loyola: 3 years/1 slot
UIC: 3 years/1 slot
Indiana: 2 years/ 3 slots
Louisville: 2 years/2 slots
LSU: 2 years/2 slots
Tulane: 2 years/2 slots
UMASS: 2 years/2 slots
Harvard: 3 years/ 2 slots
Lahey: 2 years / 2 slots
Wayne State: 2 years / 3 slots
Minnesota: 3 years / 1 slot
Mayo: 2 years / 4 slots
Nebraska: 2 years / 1 slot
U miss: 2 years / 2 slots
Alb Einstein: 2 years / 4 slots
NY-Presbyterian: 2 years / 3 slots
Nassau: 2 years / 2 slots
UNC: 2 years / 2 slots
Duke: 3 years / 3 slots
Cleveland Clinic: 2 years / 2 slots
Summa: 2 years/ 2 slots
Cincinnati: 2 years / ? slots (counted as 1)
Oklahoma: 2 years / 2 slots
Oregon: 2 years / 2 slots
Penn: 3 years / 2 slots
Temple: 2 years / 2 slots
Pitt: 2 years / 1 slot
South Carolina: 2 years / 2 slots
UT - Chattanooga: 2 years / 2 slots
UT - Memphis: 2 years / 2 slots
Vanderbilt: 2 years / 3 slots
UT - Houston: 2 years / 2 slots
UT - San Antonio: 3 years / 2 slots
UTSW: 2 years / ? slots (counted as 1)
Christus - Houston: 2 years / 2 slots
Utah: 2 years / 2 slots
UVA: 2 years / ? slots (counted as 1)

Gathering Intel

I spent the better part of the day gathering intel on 15 of the 49 programs. I got some good info, some of it from inside sources. I have been going through and checking the accreditation status of the programs as well, and I found one that is on probation. It has also become painfully clear that a good number of the fellowships will be moonshots for me, looking at where the current residents graduated medschool, did general surgery etc. Its a good thing that there are 49 places to train!

It will be some time before they even start offering interviews, but if I get some interviews from those moonshot programs I will have to be sure to go to just a few of them. I only have so much money to spend on the interview process, and if I interview at 15 places and they are all moonshots I probably won't match. The other thing is that there are only 13 weekends between the time CAS is sending out the apps to match day, so I will definitely have to be very judicious with where I take interviews. Goal #1 = match. Goal #2 = Match. Goal #3 = MATCH! After that comes getting into an excellent program.

The other thing I have thought about is starting a forum for plastics fellowship applicants. It would be nice to have a board where we could talk about the plastics programs etc. Plastics2002 does this but for people doing combined/integrated programs. Unfortunately I don't have any clue how to do that. Maybe someone will accidentally come across this blog and volunteer. I'll cross my fingers.

Waiting is Killing me

Oh this waiting is agony. Whats worse, there are probably at least 4 and a half months left before we even start hearing about interviews. Ouch.

Mosh insanely about the room!

Plastics2002 is back up!

Http://www.plastics2002.com

Found the Program that dropped!

UMDNJ-RWJNS - Cooper Hospital in Camden New Jersey is no longer in the match!!!

Now the question of the day is will the CAS notify the people who applied there or just let them discover it on their own.

Missing programs.

I looked over the list of programs in the match at http://www.azcvo.com. It turns out that one less program is on the list. There are now 49 listed when there were 50 initially. I can't figure out off the top of my head which one is missing, but I will figure it out this weekend for sure.

I got the sidebar all up to date now.

Ooops

Just found out that I missed at least 2 programs to add to the link bar. Harvard and Lahey Clinic. I will double check my list to make sure I didn't miss any more. The other thing I did today was update the CAS with my new telephone number. I also asked if I need to send anything else their way. Hopefully I will get an email back at some point.

Check out the new sidebar

I updated the sidebar to include a list of links for all programs in the match for 2005. Just in case something happens to it, here is the complete list:

UAB

UC Davis

UC Irvine

UC San Diego

UCSF

UCLA

USC - LA

University of Miami

Medical College of Georgia

Emory

Rush

University of Chicago

Loyola

University of Illinois at Chicago

Indiana University

LSU

Tulane

U MASS

Wayne State

Minnesota

Mayo

U of Mississippi

Albert Einstein

NY-Presbyterian (could not find site)

Nassau University

North Carolina

Duke

Cleveland Clinic

Summa

Cincinnati

Oklahoma

Oregon

South Carolina

Tennessee - Chattanooga

Tennessee - Memphis

Vanderbilt University

UT Houston

U Texas - San Antonio

UT Southwestern- Dallas

Christus - Houston

Utah

University of Virginia

Confirmation from ABPS

I got a final confirmation letter from the American Board of Plastic Surgery today. It said that my training thus far meets the requirements to enter a PS residency. The first letter I got from them was just a preliminary letter stating that everything looked good but was still subject to verification. I sent a copy of this final confirmation letter to the CAS and stored the original away in my files.