American Association of Plastic Surgeons Meeting 2022

Applicant Characteristics for a Successful Plastic Surgery Match

Alexander H. Sun, MD, MHS1, Melanie Major, MD1, Fan Liang, MD1, Michele Manahan, MD, MBA1, Scott Lifchez, MD1

1Department of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore, MD

-Plastic Surgery is often one of the most competitive specialties in the National Resident Matching Program (NRMP) residency match

-In 2020, 282 applicants applied for 180 positions

-165 of 229 U.S. final year MD students matched (72.1% match rate)

-This was the specialty with the lowest match rate in 2020

-Medical students may seek to improve their application through a variety of means, such as pursuing research or taking a gap year

-Objective of this study is to understand the importance of these factors

After IRB approval, data was collected from applications submitted to the Johns Hopkins / University of Maryland combined PRS residency program in the 2020-2021 application cycle. Public information gathered from the Internet include final match status, as well as college rankings and medical school research rankings. Multiple logistic regression was run for final match status for US MD applicants only. For demographics, data for groups with less than n=5 are not reported in percentages in order to maintain anonymity of applicants. “Total academic productivity” was defined as the summation of peer-reviewed publications, other-than-published (submitted) publications, book chapters, poster presentations and oral presentations.

In total, 271 applicants were analyzed. Results are reported below. N is not reported for groups < 5 to maintain applicant anonymity.

ØMatch rate for this cohort was 59.8% (66.5% of U.S. MDs)

ØNo difference in USMLE scores by type of training, but academic productivity varied significantly

ØIndividuals from top-ranked research institutions were associated with having greater academic productivity and more often taking gap years

ØModel could predict 87.6% of successful matches and 64.4% of non-successful matches

ØThis predictive ability is maintained even without Step 1, lower accuracy in predicting non-matches

ØModel cannot capture certain factors, such as qualitative assessments or contact between faculty

ØAwareness of these factors will allow programs to reflect on characteristics that they deem to be important, and allows for conversation regarding the potential for bias associated with cutoffs or algorithms

American Association of Plastic Surgeons Meeting 2022

Applicant Characteristics For A Successful Plastic Surgery Match

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