What Do Anesthesia Program Directors Want?

Congratulations to all the medical students on another successful Match Day. I want bore you with the details about how anesthesiology did this year. As usual, there were more programs and spots available over last year despite increasing concerns about training too many anesthesiologists. However some of the increase can be attributed to osteopathic programs that are now part of the unified Main Residency Match. As usual, over 98% of positions were taken, though only two-thirds were filled by US senior med students. That compares with over 90% US seniors in highly desirable residencies like ENT or orthopedic surgery.

What I found more newsworthy is the NRMP's survey of program directors. For practically forever, med students have wondered what qualities residency directors look for when seeking applicants for their programs. That is one of the top questions I get asked every year. We now have concrete answers thanks to the NRMP.

The NRMP director survey is done for each specialty. Obviously I'm just going to talk about anesthesia directors. So what are the factors that make a student more desirable?

As you can see, the number one issue that makes a student competitive for an interview is the board scores, particularly Step 1. This is followed by the letters of recommendation, grades in the clerkship, Dean's letter, and class rank. Surprisingly, even though students sweat for weeks working on it, your personal statement isn't really all that important.

When it comes to how programs rank all their interviewees for the Match, the number one factor is interactions with faculty, followed by interpersonal skills, interactions with housestaff, feedback from residents, and board scores. This proves what I've been telling students all along--if you're credentials are strong enough to make it to the interview stage, the rest is all about personality and interactivity. It doesn't matter if you're the most brilliant student this side of Stephen Hawking. If you come across as an arrogant jerk during the interviews or a shrinking wallflower, you will not get ranked highly.

So go check out the rest of the survey by clicking on the link above. You'll find other interesting tidbits like the average anesthesia residency received over 800 applications, but interviewed less than 150. And how Canadian students are really screwed on American Match Day. Again congratulations to all.