Why Every Doctor Specialty Seems Competitive

Why does it feel like every specialty's residency is super competitive? If you're a premed or medical student, are you doomed for just about every specialty? Or is there something else going on here that we need to call out? I often get messages from concerned premeds and medical students about whether or not they'll have a realistic chance of matching into their desired specialty.

One of my companies is Med School Insiders and we specialize in helping premeds get into medical school and medical students get into their desired specialty. We deal with residency admissions day in and day out. It's our bread and butter, and we see first hand which specialties are more competitive and which are less competitive.

In this video, I'll cover why every specialty seems competitive as well as the 5 tiers of specialty competitiveness backed by objective data.

TIMESTAMPS:
00:00 - Introduction
01:28 - Competitiveness Changes
03:28 - Medical School is Challenging Regardless of Field
03:50 - Ego
06:37 - Specialty Competitiveness Tiers
07:35 - Closing Thoughts

LINKS FROM VIDEO:

#doctor #medicalschool #residency
====================

Disclaimer: Content of this video is my opinion and does not constitute medical advice. The content and associated links provide general information for general educational purposes only. Use of this information is strictly at your own risk. Kevin Jubbal, M.D. will not assume any liability for direct or indirect losses or damages that may result from the use of information contained in this video including but not limited to economic loss, injury, illness or death. May include affiliate links to Amazon. As an Amazon Associate, I may earn a commission on qualifying purchases made through them (at no extra cost to you).

[kevinjubbalmd]

Appreciate the feedback! Some of you mentioned the window on the MSI Competitive Index was too long. I created a few versions here. V1 covers 2014-2020. V2 covers 2016-2020. V3 covers 2018-2020. And V4 includes only 2020 data. When 2022 data is released we'll update these analyses further (and we're still working on an improved advanced analysis that also includes some additional specialties - stay tuned for that)

Overall, directionally the data is very similar between each version. Some viewers pointed out Rad Onc and Anesthesia have changed a lot in recent years. Anesthesia in V1 was #20 and in V4 is #17. Rad Onc in V1 was #6 and in V4 is #7. These may certainly change when 2022 data is released, but based on current data, directionally very similar.

In V2, the updated list is as follows:
Dermatology
Plastic Surgery
Neurosurgery
Orthopedic Surgery
ENT
Interventional Radiology
Radiation Oncology
Vascular Surgery
General Surgery
Med/Peds
Diagnostic Radiology
Child Neurology
Internal Medicine
OBGYN
Pathology
Neurology
Emergency Medicine
Psychiatry
Anesthesiology
Pediatrics
PM&R
Family Medicine

In V3, the updated list is as follows:
Dermatology
Plastic Surgery
Neurosurgery
Orthopedic Surgery
ENT
Radiation Oncology
Interventional Radiology
Vascular Surgery
General Surgery
Med/Peds
Diagnostic Radiology
OBGYN
Child Neurology
Internal Medicine
Pathology
Neurology
Anesthesiology
Emergency Medicine
Psychiatry
Pediatrics
PM&R
Family Medicine

And in V4, the list is as follows:
Plastic Surgery
Dermatology
Neurosurgery
ENT
Orthopedic Surgery
Interventional Radiology
Radiation Oncology
Vascular Surgery
General Surgery
Med/Peds
Diagnostic Radiology
Internal Medicine
Child Neurology
OBGYN
Neurology
Pathology
Anesthesiology
Emergency Medicine
Psychiatry
Pediatrics
PM&R
Family Medicine

[kromatic]

11k applicants went unmatched this year out of 45k. I'm in the Tier 7 attainable category. Going into med school, I put so much pressure on myself to pursue a competitive specialty. At the end of the third year, I knew I just wanted to be a good, caring doctor.
Dude, I'm just so freaking happy I matched. It's an honor to match, regardless of specialty.

[junaidsajid]

Your experience, reasonable and highly well thought out arguments, and no BS attitude is why you're one of the 2-3 people I'll turn to for advice or enlightening thoughts. I can't imagine how far you'll go with time.

[kevinjubbalmd]

We're working on a new and improved MSI Competitive Index that will also be including urology and ophthalmology. Stay tuned =)

[ioutubeurreswiss]

I never understood why the competitiveness to enter a specialty is used to determine the difficulty of the specialty. As you say, it is rather a reflection of supply and demand and other parameters. But it doesn't really reflect the difficulty of the things to be learned, the acts or the clinical decisions or the workload.

[tim_ernest]

So happy that of the 5 specialties I think I could do 4 of them fall into the attainable section. It makes the idea of finding meaningful work less intimidating! Besides, for anyone who wants to pursue hyper-competitiveness but may be dissuaded from the competitiveness of the specialty can still pursue the top-tier residency programs (Harvard Psych will likely still require top tier med students, even if other Harvard specialties may be harder). Thank you for being open on how you ranked the specialties with data.

[khalilahd.]

I think healthy competition is the stepping stone of innovation but sometimes it’s a bit much 😭 the fact that you can even call yourself a doctor is an incredible Feat on its own but I may be biased because I’m applying to medical school and I’m just trying to get in at this point 😭😭

[matthewstokell]

It's also important to realize every program is different, for instance, a small community general surgery residency might be less competitive than the most sought after academic family medicne residencies. So even within every type of residency there can be a huge range of competitiveness based on different individual programs.

[mariopellegrino]

Your videos always put me in a good mood.

[Soriyou]

Urology and optho would make into highly competitive specialty. Maybe optho goes to tier 3, but their focus on research experience makes the specialty pretty challenging to get into.
IM is way too broad. Getting into IM residency at Johns Hopkins or Stanford would be very challenging to do, whereas getting into community hospitals would be much more "attainable."
From this year's match data, I saw that more people from so called "top medical schools" are going into psychiatry. Great lifestyle, decent pay, huge potential for telemedicine.
The threat from the midlevel is present, but not as much as primary care. I heard that PMR is on the rise, but I am not sure if the data supports that.
Perhaps making a video on specialty trend would be a good follow-up video.

[adeptsaxophonist]

Love this video brother. Also love you didn’t hold back against a certain subgroup trying to pretend to be physicians.

Yes if you call yourself Dr. In a clinical setting wearing a white coat and didn’t go to medical school I’m probably talking about you. More and more med students and doctors are getting fed up with this deception.

[adoseofcare]

Great! I want to do pediatrics. That being one of the least competitive, it makes me feel like it's within my grasp.

[zebedeekanhai]

This is very inspirational. I look up to you as one of my role models and you've inspired me so much to work towards my dreams. Thanks :)

[syedafaryalwasti]

Literally LOL'd at the dig at the end.

[Mr_Smackle]

Im a 4th year applying rad onc currently. One thing i want to highlight is that the program itself is usually a better metric of how competitive something is. Example: matching Harvard's internal medicine program is probably more competitive than matching the community dermatology programs.

In rad onc specifically its tough because programs are small (1-3 spots) and almost all rad onc is at major academic institutions associated with an NCI cancer center- hence its competitive

[saidchammas]

I'm glad that what i feel passionate about isn't too competitive, win win situation

[akireharris]

This gave me more hope for interventional radiology 🤞🏽🤞🏽

[gerinimoify]

7:45 I'm so glad we have bigger med-content creators calling it how it is. Seems like everyone else is hush-hush on this topic in particular....I wonder why?

[Happypappytappy]

All the EM bros about to be mad tight on here

[yvaes]

As a caveat, I would like to note that the top programs in any field are going to be competitive to get into. And as a point of advice, it doesn't really matter what you do in terms of choice of specialty, but what you choose to do with the experience and expertise you got.