I'm not sure if I can accurately answer your question, but I can tell you that getting a new chair does not predispose a program to probation. My program is getting a new chair this year and we are not on probation. I think some of it has to do with the state of your program at the moment that the RRC visits. I don't exactly know their requirements but I know they look for having adequate faculty and caseload (# of patients to work on). I believe they also look at academic work like conferences and research but I'm not sure what carries the most weight. I was told last year that if a program loses its chairman and doesn't replace him/her in a timely fashion it can warrant probation. UTSA may be an example of this as I've heard their chair tried to retire a couple of years ago and they have had trouble replacing him thus far, and I hear they are now on probation.
My view is that the bottom line is whether or not you see enough patients and do enough cases is all that matters. Every patient has to be staffed by some attending, so if a program sees enough volume one way or another you will learn. Some programs have lots of attending input and others have extremely high autonomy, but they all train orthopods. You might want to look at the ACGME website to learn more about probation and what it means. I don't believe there is an effort out there to cut the number of training spots, because there are plenty of jobs and the US needs new pods to come out and operate on those that need it. They are just trying to make sure that residents get enough knowledge to be good surgeons. If you are struggling to match, it would be better to match somewhere on probation than get stuck doing some other specialty.
