Author:  Jeff Knox, CPT, USA

                    UWSOM E03

                    Orthopaedic Surgery, Triple Army Medical Center

1. Match
   1. Here’s how it works, simplified.  On a very fateful day, all of the program directors pow-wow in DC and decide your fate.  Yes, it’s not the computer match we expected.  They have your rank list and the programs’ lists and they compare notes.  It often ends up fair enough but if a director thought you were greatest medical student that ever was then they can bargain you into their program.  It’s sort of like trading baseball cards as a kid.  “I really, really want Billy Jones.  He’s my favorite”…”Well so do I and he said I’m his number one choice and he writes the best H+P’s that I have ever seen, they bring me to tears” “All right you can have him, but then I want Jimmy “the Bulldog” Sanchez”…
   2. The flipside of the director’s meeting is that they pow-wow on your performance also.  So if you kicked serious butt at Tripler but never rotated at your top choice Eisenhower then the Tripler guys will fill them in (not that anyone would choose Eisey over Tripler).
   3. Tell your number one program that they’re number one.  Tell you number two that they’re not your number one for whatever reason but they’re a close second.  If you lie, it will come out when the directors meet, it will be ackward and you will not get either.
   4. For tie breakers there’s a formula with five categories.

                     i.      Boards

                     ii.      Grades

                     iii.      Army stuff

                     iv.      ADTs

                     v.      Publications

                     vi.      They will also evaluate your application that way, some may go over these categories during your interviews. 

                     vii.      Basically kick butt on everything and you’ll get more points- big surprise.

                     viii.      Prior service get more Army stuff points, so do current interns. Bad for you now, good for you if you need to switch later.

5. Interviews: Normally just getting to know you, no hard questions but I have been fooled so be prepared for anything.  You often interview with each faculty and the chief residents.  Its’ a lot and they ask the same questions, about college, research, growing up etc… 

                     i.      Hard questions to be ready for

1.      Why you became a doctor

2.      Why the Army

3.      Why this specialty

4.      Why this program

5.      What’s your worst quality- yes it’s true, they asked… twice

6.      What’s in your toolbox (ok in an ortho interview)

7.      What do build  (yes in ortho again)

8.      If you saw somebody doing … (something bad) then what would you do

9.      What’s the last book you read

10.  What kind of books do you like and why

                     ii.      Just like med school.  Have good questions.  They usually run out of things to talk about and a good question from you can often pep the conversation/interview back up rather than dying off in an ackward silence. 

                     iii.      Common sense tip: Have your class A’s immaculate.  Some people showed up all jacked up.  Don’t be that guy/girl.  They won’t say anything to you, but certainly will say something to the selection board.

6. If you are looking at a specialty with few slots, be prepared to not get it.  Statistics are against you.  It sucks but it’s the Army. At that point you can either squeeze into a transitional program or the “scramble list” is sent out.  It has the list of non-matched spots and you get it in November or so.  If you don’t match then you resubmit a new match list from these choices.  My year it was neurology, family practice, and preventative medicine.
7. Don’t count on matching somewhere then switching after a year.  If you sign a contract for the whole time then it’s entirely up to the goodness of the Army’s heart to let you out.  Basically if you go up in the rank of specialties they like the most.  i.e. they won’t let you drop out of neurology to go into ER.  They have tons of ER applicants and are hurting for neurology applicants as an example.