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Chapter 8-The Match and ERAS

"2004 NRMP Main Match Schedule (Not Early Match Dates)

August 15, 2003

Applicant registration begins

September 2, 2003

Institution / program registration begins

December 1, 2003

Applicant registration deadline

Note: Applicants may register after this deadline by paying an additional late registration fee of $50.00.

January 15, 2004

Rank order list entry begins.

Applicants and programs may start entering their rank order lists.

January 30, 2004

Quota change deadline

Programs must submit final information on quotas and withdrawals.

February 25, 2004

Late Registration Deadline

Rank order list deadline

Rank order list entry closes and the R3 System shuts down at 11:59 pm eastern time. CERTIFIED applicant and program rank order lists and any other information pertinent to the Match must be entered in the R3 System by this date and time.

March 15, 2004

Matched and unmatched information on applicants posted to the website at 12:00 noon eastern time.

March 16, 2004

Filled and unfilled results for individual programs posted to the website at 11:30 am eastern time.

Locations of all unfilled positions are released at 12:00 noon eastern time. Unmatched applicants may begin contacting unfilled programs at 12:00 noon eastern time.

March 18, 2004

Match results for applicants are posted to website at

1:00 pm eastern time.

March 19, 2004

Hospitals send letters of appointment to matched applicants after this date."

Note: Any contact between programs and unmatched applicants (or their designees) prior to 12:00 noon eastern time Tuesday, March 16, 2004 is a violation of the Match Participation Agreement. Contact between programs and matched applicants prior to the general announcement of 2004 Match results at 1:00 pm eastern time Thursday, March 18, 2004 also is a violation of the Match Participation Agreement.

Choosing programs to apply to

When choosing a residency program, what is considered a great program for one applicant maybe different for the next.  The reason being is that most residency programs will train you well.  Often what makes a person a great resident, or gets you into a great fellowship, is determined by your residency experience, and what you make of it.  The best result will come from you being happy in your program (at least for most people.)  There are many factors involved in keeping you happy, and everyone is different.  For one, work week hours.  Prior to the nationwide enforcement of the 80 hour work week, there existed a great variability in work week hours among different specialties and even between different programs in the same specialty.  This may not be a big difference for some residency programs, but for specialties like General, or Neuro-surgery, it is a huge difference.  Also, if you want to still put in extra hours into your learning, you can with extra reading at home, research, etc…  Keep in mind that not all programs around the country are compliant with the work hour restrictions, and they will eventually have problems with accreditation, which is bad for you the resident.  Another factor is getting along with your team, which will really be the entire department, and entails, residents, faculty, fellows, and staff.  You will be interacting with all of these people (especially the residents) in very personal ways for the next 3-7 years.  Another important aspect is the city the program resides in.  As you can imagine, doing a residency in New York City appeals to some, and maybe not to others, as would a residency in Omaha Nebraska, appeals to some and not to others.  I hope you get my drift, and the point is, that although you will be in the hospital a lot, you will come home, and you will have some evenings free.  If you are single, or married with children, questions about a city like cost of living, schools, will it be possible to purchase a home, is there a nightlife, are very important questions to know about when choosing programs to apply to.  The last very important aspect in choosing programs, is whether you will have a nearby support system, aka, family or close friends.  Residency will be tough, and will ask a lot of you.  For those interested in pursuing academic positions or competitive fellowships after residency, you will have to excel during your residency to have the most opportunities.  The best way to do this is by going to your best fit program, working in a place whose faculty supports their residents, and their education, in a city you can enjoy, hopefully with some family or close friends nearby.  One last thing, some applicants don’t really care about all of the above mentioned features about a program, and are only interested in the BEST PROGRAMS.  You know who you are, and if this is truly your personality then go for it.  However,  I still do recommend you take into account these features, when choosing your top 3 choices.

Letters of Recommendation at away institutions

If you took an away elective, make sure that at the end of the elective if you did a great job, have a faculty member who got to know you, write a letter of recommendation to include into your ERAS application, and transmit it to desired programs.  During Late January and early February (before match list selection in their institution) contact that person again, and request they personally call and speak with the program director to speak in your favor. 

Research

Research is very important, especially for very competitive specialties.  When talking with one assistant program director, I had an opportunity to discuss the break down of their rating system to select candidates for interviews.  They basically had a point system, awarded to 5 different categories.  Each category got between 1-5 points.  The categories where broken down into: step 1 scores first (what a surprise), 3rd year grades, research, class rank, and extracurricular activities.  The research category points where awarded in this way: 5 points for publishing in a large peer review journal, 4 points for publishing in a non-peer review journal, or presenting at a conference, 3 points for doing multiple research projects which were not published, 2 points for doing a project, and 1 point for no research.  Looking at this point system, it is not that important that you do 20 different projects, but rather 1-2 really significant projects that are over a long enough period of time you process sufficient data, to hopefully publish in a peer review journal.  Ways to increase your chances in getting published are: doing work with a mentor who is highly published (you can run a Medline search on the author to pull up all of their publications,) and dedicating enough time to a project.  Remember this won’t be the only aspect of your application they will look at, but it is best to make sure you cover all of your bases well.

Finishing Up

At this stage of the game, it is very important that you have completed and submitted all materials of your ERAS applications. If not, you should soon. Having everything done by the end of September is about the average mark. Make sure that all letters, and transcripts are in. Your personal statement should have been looked over several times by now, and ready to go. Your dean’s letter will be sent separately, but still keep an eye out for that.

Fees

Fees for ERAS are calculated automatically, and added up depending on the number of programs applied to per specialty.

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