Hey everyone, I am a 3rd/4th yr student and I will be applying for Urology this year. I know its tough but my main question is if I did not match in Urology and I instead matched in General surgery, could I transition into Urology after my intern year? Thanks
First off, are you a 3rd year or a 4th year? What does 3rd/4th mean?Would you be doing General Surgery as a back up plan or would you want to scramble into a prelim Gen Surg spot after potentially not matching into urology.The answer is yes you can transition into Urology after your intern year. The chances of that happening are very small because that requires someone who did match in Urology to decide to vacate their spot for whatever reason (career change, mental breakdown, etc). That would leave a spot open in the program. If it just so happened that a PGY1 in urology quit, for example, there would be an opening for the next year as a PGY2 that they look to fill from people who have done a Gen Surg intern year. Also keep in mind that due to whatever circumstances, the spot could open anywhere across the country.
The short answer is its possible, but I wouldn't count on it. Every year, a small percentage of Urology interns will drop out, leaving an open PGY2 spot, or a program will add another spot and backfill the pgy2 year. I don't know the exact number of spots, but I'm sure it's a very small number, and very variable year to year given Urology's small sample size.For those small number of spots, you'd be competing against all the people that didn't match the previous year and did a surgery prelim year, plus prelims/other residents at the program with an opening, etc. In short it can be and is done, but it's a very risky path. If you really want to be a Urologist, then decide now and go for it.