A number of you have sent me PM's asking variations of the same topic, so here's a bit more..
First time around, I received 13 offers but was only able to go to 10 due to conflicts. However, out of these offers, 3 were programs where I rotated and one was my home program. Supposedly, I had the "magic number" of interviews. I should note that out of those three away rotations, I bombed the first one, ie wasn't well informed, was late a couple times, and just didn't mesh well with the residents. I did really well on my next two rotations and received great LOR's. Residents at these programs had nothing but great things to say to me.
After I didn't match, I scrambled into a prelim surg position at a large academic center with a strong ortho program. At this program, I requested and received 3 ortho rotations, although only 2 of these were before the match. I did well on my ortho rotations, although I have to admit I wasn't well prepared for my gen surg rotations. My ortho program did not offer the support nor encouragement I was expecting, this was both disappointing and frustrating of course.
Turns out, my gen surg PD offer far better mentorship then any of the ortho attendings at this program. He advised me to at least consider a back up and recommended either gen surg or anesthesia depending on whether I still wanted to operate. He made it clear that the only reason I was not being actively recruited was because I was so focused on ortho that he knew I would jump ship as soon as an opening came around.
Second time around, I applied to approx 80 programs. I was much more discerning regarding choice of programs this time around. Unfortunately, in spite of great LOR's, applying as a graduate automatically weeds you out of some programs. I ended up with 10 interviews, of which I was able to attend 9. This was in spite of a stronger application.
I was offered a CA-1 position in pre-match at a great anesthesia program. I turned this down, hoping I would match into ortho. This didn't happen of course, I ended up in my #1 anesthesia program. Goes to show you how competitive us ortho wannabe's really are, I got into a great anesthesia program without doing a SINGLE anesthesia rotation either as a student or during internship.
Since I matched into a CA1 starting in 2011, I decided to do another internship during my year off, this time at a community surgery program. This way, I still have another year to look for ortho spots or to change my mind entirely and go into gen surg. Although it sucks doing this BS all over again, its much much easier the second time around.
Closing tips for those who didn't want to read my life story:
1) If you're worried about matching, think about what you want to do for the next year. Can you afford to continue medical school (as a 5th year)? Do you want to do research? Are you willing to bust your behind doing a prelim surg year?
2) If you didn't match, you really need to look at why you didn't match. Is it scores? (which you can't really improve), research? possibly a fluke?
This is also the time to find a supportive program. This may be your home program where they know you well. If you want to go somewhere else, try to find a program that has had reasonable success matching their prelims into their choice of careers.
3)Think early and carefully about a back up plan. Will you be happy doing anesthesia forever? Will you be happy giving up on your dream? Was ortho really your dream career or is it just something that you like but could be equally happy doing something else?
4)If you're still going all out for ortho and choose to do a prelim surg year, you need to really show up every single day. One off day, rubbing the wrong person the wrong way could nix your chances at that program.
As hard as it is, get involved with research.
Hope this helps guys, good luck
