Category Archives: Match

Blog posts about the MATCH.

The Role International Medical Schools Play in Addressing America’s Primary Care Needs

Posted on November 9, 2016 by | 4 comments
heidi_chumley_march-2016

Heidi Chumley, MD

This year, the American Academy of Family Physicians’ report on the ACGME Family Medicine Match goes further than any of its previous 34 editions by acknowledging the existence of international medical schools, which collectively are a major contributor to the primary care workforce of the United States.

How big is the contribution? The report doesn’t tell us, though its purpose, according to its authors, is to help medical schools understand how well they are doing their part in contributing to the primary care workforce and guide strategies for further development. There is much to learn from international medical schools, particularly those that primarily educate and train students originating from the US to return to it for residency and practice.

International medical schools provide the ballast for a primary care workforce that desperately needs it. This year, Ross University School of Medicine, St. George’s University School of Medicine, and American University of the Caribbean School of Medicine (where I serve as executive dean) accounted for about 15% of all new family medicine residents in the United States. That’s not a passing comment in the US family medicine workforce story—that’s a major theme. And it’s a consistent theme: about 30% of the graduates in AUC’s history are practicing in family medicine.

International schools vary in size, and among the three mentioned above, AUC is the smallest. In 2015, 62 (28%) of our graduates entered family medicine residencies, a higher number and percentage than any US allopathic school reviewed in the report. For perspective, the 13 public and private schools in New York had 83, the six University of California system schools totaled 75, the four University of Texas schools had 70, and all seven medical schools in Florida combined for only 44.

Meanwhile family medicine advocates continue to worry over how to get more students into US medical schools instead of supporting the international schools that continue to produce family physicians. Two very powerful myths cloud the discussion about family medicine as a discipline and schools like mine as a separate issue. The first myth is the outdated notion that a US allopathic graduate is somehow better than an IMG. The second myth is actually a fantasy: the idea that US MD schools will somehow get better at producing family physicians. The evidence just doesn’t bear that out.

We all know of remarkable initiatives underway at some schools, but consider the US MD institution (AAMC, LCME, etc) as a whole. If there was real concern about family physicians, at a minimum new medical schools would be required to produce them, but it’s not happening. Last year the newer medical schools contributed very few family physicians. University of Central Florida, Florida Atlantic University, and Florida International University combined for only seven family medicine residents. Oakland in Michigan had just two, Texas Tech University Paul L. Foster five, and Virginia Tech Carillon three—while Hofstra had none. The best result I see is USC-Greenville notching six family medicine residents, which puts them at 8.5% and therefore at least close to the US average of 8.7%.

Schools like AUC want to be part of the solution when it comes to creating and nurturing a family medicine workforce that meets the country’s needs. Given that commitment and the desire of the vast majority of our students and graduates to practice in the US, there are numerous actions the family medicine community can take to support our participation and continued contribution:

  • Host sessions at your major educational meetings to increase the awareness of and understanding of international medical schools.
  • Allow medical students at international schools to be regular student members of your organizations. If you can’t go that far, at least allow US citizens attending international medical schools to join as regular student members.
  • Voice opposition to the practice of residency programs using percentage of US MD graduates who are residents as a quality measure.
  • Ask hard questions about social accountability of family medicine residency programs who will not consider international graduates who came from the underserved parts of their states and plan to return there to practice.
  • Encourage and support studies that look not only at the attributes of US allopathic schools but also at the attributes of international medical schools associated with higher percentages of graduates choosing family medicine.
  • Advocate for all loan repayment programs to extend eligibility to international graduates.
  • Help educate family physicians in your pre-med mentorships and shadowing programs to encourage students who are not admitted to US medical schools to consider an international school with a proven track record in producing family physicians.

There is much work to do to ensure that the US has an adequate supply of family physicians to make progress on the triple aim. It is time to be working together.

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Posted in Family Medicine Stories, Match, Medical School, Residency

Too Much of Anything Is Bad: Advising Students on the Number of Programs to Apply to

Posted on June 9, 2014 by | 3 comments

By David Anthony, MD, MSc, Alec Chessman, MD, Kristina Duarte, MD, ScM, Katie Margo, MD, of Medicine Jacob Prunuske, MD, MSPH, and Martha Seagrave, PA-C.

This is in response to a previous blog post, How Faculty Can Prepare Students for the Match.

In an effort to address the increasing challenge of assisting students in obtaining family medicine positions in the Match, Michelfelder et al recently published a set of recommendations derived from discussions at sessions presented at the Society of Teachers of Family Medicine (STFM) Conference on Medical Student Education (MSE) and the Association of Departments of Family Medicine Conference. We commend the authors on their important work, and we support many of their recommendations, including:

  • Encouraging increased communication between medical school advisors and program directors
  • Discouraging students who do not “see themselves as thriving as family physicians” from applying to family medicine programs

However, we take issue with one of their recommendations, and pose an alternate viewpoint.

The authors state that “Most clerkship directors recommend students apply to 20–40 programs to increase interview offers.” While this statement may represent the prevailing voiced opinion during the lecture discussion at MSE, we take issue with the claim that most clerkship directors recommend students apply to 20–40 programs, and we vigorously disagree with the recommendation. Broadly encouraging students to apply to such a large number of programs will worsen the challenges of students in obtaining interviews and residency positions.

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Posted in Education, Match, Medical School

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How Faculty Can Prepare Students for the Match

Posted on April 3, 2014 by | 2 comments

By Aaron Michelfelder, MD; Joel Heidelbaugh, MD; Cristen Page, MD, MPH, and Eva Bading, MD

Read the response to this blog post, Too Much of Anything Is Bad: Advising Students on the Number of Programs to Apply to.

As matching into all specialties has become more challenging in the last few years for US medical students, it is important to provide the most timely and accurate advice to those considering family medicine.

Several confounding factors contribute to a more challenging match into family medicine as a primary specialty choice:

  • Medical school class size has increased, and new schools have been formed without any increase in residency positions.
  • There is an increase in US citizens who are international medical students and who are entering the residency Match pool.
  • Medical specialties are becoming more competitive, and students at risk of not matching into their primary specialty choice are creating parallel plans.
  • Fourth-year medical students apply to two or three different specialties, which results in more students applying to family medicine, many of whom are highly competitive and have high USMLE scores.
  • Students who in the past would have been offered many interviews are being offered fewer due to the influx of parallel plan students flooding the family medicine applicant pool.
  • Programs are placing a higher emphasis on USMLE scores as a method of predicting the possibility of passing the ABFM board exam.
  • National Residency Matching Program All In Policy means that more residency slots are filled during the Match, and fewer are available for the Supplemental Offer and Acceptance Program, or SOAP (formerly called “the scramble”).

We recently hosted lecture-discussions on matching into family medicine at the 2014 Society of Teachers of Family Medicine Conference on Medical Student Education and the 2014 Association of Departments of Family Medicine Conference and have collated the thoughts and recommendations of these national discussion participants with advice to students wishing to match into family medicine as listed below.

1) Students should pass and perform well on USMLE Step 1 on the first attempt. It is better to delay clinical clerkships and graduation than to fail Step 1. Some residency programs use the average Step 1 score (around 220) as a cutoff for interview invitations.

2) Students should work hard and perform well on clinical clerkships. International medical students understand that performance on clerkships can help with getting a residency spot, so US medical students can sometimes be overshadowed by very capable and hard-working international medical students. US medical students are competing more than ever against many talented and competitive US and international medical graduates.

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Posted in Education, Match, Medical School, Residency

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