IMGs post-Scramble

 I got an absolutely insane amount of emails from IMGs looking for residency positions yesterday. I usually get one or two every couple of days. For some reason everyone who did not match decided to email me looking for PGY2 spots yesterday. As we have no openings, it was very strange! Is there some conventional wisdom out there that says that you should email on a Monday? I personally think it 's the worst day to solicit, because when I roll in on Monday morning, there are a zillion urgent emails clogging up my inbox. At least on Tuesday/ Wednesday, I have time to respond to them.


P.S. For some reason, 90% of the IMGs looking for residency spots use the word "keen" in their emails. Again, very curious!

Board Review Books!

Yep, my PGY4s are in the process of buying them. I will post a list of the ones they find most useful next week. Never too early to start studying for the boards...

An Update from the NRMP

As I mentioned earlier, when the Scramble began and the unmatched could not access the list of unfilled programs, there was absolute pandemonium on the forums. Lots of talk of conspiracies by AMGs against IMGs, rumors that hackers had taken down the NRMP servers, talk of a class action lawsuit, weeping and wailing and tearing of hair and railing against the whole Match process in general.

So now, an email from the NRMP. To sum it up, they do not know what happened, but they are investigating. This investigation is expected to take several weeks. Was it a denial of service attack? Who would do that, and why? Or were their servers just overwhelmed? I don't know that the demands of the Match were any greater this year than in previous years, when there have been no problems. We will just have to wait and see what the outcome is. And hope for a better match for all of us next year--AMGs, IMGs, and us poor residency coordinators caught up in this whole crazy process...

The Match is Over!

It seems like we spend half the year preparing for the match and yet it's over in an instant. This year was particularly strange because the NRMP servers crashed during the Scramble, meaning that nobody could log in to get the list of unfilled programs. I actually had an IMG walk into my office without knocking asking if I had the list--I didn't. My program filled, so I didn't have access to it. But I saw there was a meltdown on the student doc forums as most of those who were relying on the list to scramble did not receive it for several hours. When they finally got the list, almost all of the positions had been filled--by AMGs. What a nightmare!