Good luck to everyone in the upcoming match! If you find that you didn't match, you do have options. If it is Black Monday for you as it was for me, here is some advice about the different options.
1. Be A different kind of doc- only if you are not completely committed to orthopaedic surgery and you could see yourself being relatively happy doing something else
2. Scramble- There are very few REAL spots available. Most Ortho Spots ?open? are really just programs that closed this year and didn?t take residents. Those that do have spots are often programs with major deficiencies or uncertain futures.
3. Ortho spots outside the match- Unfortunately these are rare and only occur when a program was granted an extra spot by the RRC after the match list was due. Also, when these do come about, they are poorly publicized and often programs take one of their own to fill it.
4. General Surgery year- A chance to prevent losing a year but unless you are lucky enough to find out about 2 spots that open up and are offered one it is difficult road to orthopaedics. As a general surgery intern, you perform scut without much of a chance to improve your application or spend meaningful time with attendings to gain a new LOR
5. Research- Although you?ll miss the OR and seeing patients on a regular basis, you will be able to improve your application through publications, new LORs and networking. Also, you will improve your knowledge base in ortho. Many of the research positions including this one at PENN are available and often filled before the scramble begins so you will already be making strides to prevent a repeat disaster. I actually started here at PENN before i graduated from medical school so that I could get things rolling as quickly as possible.
The research position at the University of Pennsylvania is a paid research position. It is traditionally entirely clinical orthopaedic oncology research with the chairman, Richard D. Lackman, and his two partners, Edward J. Fox and Christian M. Ogilvie. The last two people who occupied this position had very little previous exposure to orthopaedic oncology. However, after this year of research, one gains a better understanding of it. The great things about orthopaedic oncology are: you work all over the body and not just around one or two joints, everyday you see something amazing (it never gets boring), you get to put in large complicated implants (total scapula replacement or replacing the entire femur with a total femur prosthesis), you are saving lives everyday, and patients really need your help.
Before I came to PENN, I thought orthopaedic oncology was predominantly a depressing specialty. On the contrary, this office (3 full-time ortho onc surgeons plus 5-6 staff) is quite upbeat. The vast majority of patients come in scared and leave either happy they don't have cancer or leave with options that will save their life and allow them to return to activities of daily living.
Even if you don't go into ortho oncology, there are still advantages to doing research in the field. You will probably have no problems on OITE oncology questions (which are often hard for residents). Even more important, as an orthopaedic surgeon, you are going to see quite a few musculoskeletal tumors in your career. Hopefully you will know enough about the clinical characteristics and imaging to diagnose these, decide which ones are malignant and which are harmless, and get the appropriate patients to an ortho onc specialist with the appropriate work-up. I think this year has given me a great ortho oncology background as well as improving my overall ortho knowledge. I would encourage anyone who doesn't match to give it serious consideration.
Doing research at PENN for the year has given me the opportunity to meet many great people and has been an excellent experience that will hopefully net me an orthopaedic residency. My new LORs from PENN and research experience helped me to be invited to seven more interviews this year (20) when compared to last year (13). The two preceding research fellows both matched. If your still reading, thanks and good luck on the 3/13. Hopefully the 13th will be lucky for all of us.
Feel free to inquire about the position with the attendings:
Edward J. Fox, MD
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Christian M. Ogilvie, MD
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or me
Joe Finstein, MD
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[email protected][/url]
