very nice final point!

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"The Dude abides."

clinical observation (even hours of it) is very different than actually doing it. I think NY's observation comes from going through medical school and seeing people (maybe even herself) change their minds from year 1 to year 3 (heck i've seen people change their minds from rotation to rotation!).

i don't think he is saying he know YOU, just the nature of medical school (which since he is about to graduate and you have yet to experience), which i believe he is in a better postion to judge.

i wouldn't have said not well thought out--you HAVE probably thought about it--just more like short sighted..you cannot say with absolute surety that you will not change your mind and to limit yourself from the get go is a bit short sighted...

best to compare match lists

School of Medicine - Universidad Autonoma de Guadalajara

SGU Residency Postings for 2008

personally, i think sgu's is a little more impressive (but then I'm ON the sgu list, so i may be a little biased!

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there is no comparison with the match lists. 3 EM, 2 rads, 2 ob/gyn, 1 pmr, 1 path.... then the rest FP, IM, and peds. oh yea, there were 3 prelim surgeries (which were probably scrambles).

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Dr. Scott
Internal Medicine
PGY-1 in July 2008

AUC Forum Moderator

41 - 2008
35 - 2007
42 - 2006
88 - 2005
105 - 2004
127 - 2003
135 - 2002

whats going on with UAG? why are their match numbers going down? are they having smaller class sizes for whatever reason or are they having dismal match rates the past few years?

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Dr. Scott
Internal Medicine
PGY-1 in July 2008

AUC Forum Moderator

I have often cautioned against comparing match stats. There are a number of reasons that make such comparisons silly. The data are inaccurate and to do it well you would have to control for stats (USMLE scores) and the number of people who apply for each specialty. But, curiosity got the better of me so I decided to ignore my own advice. Here is a comparison of Saba vs SGU:

I compared primary care (FM, IM, Peds, Psych) vs nonprimary care placements. The Saba data is nicely organized by speciality so I included all the data. The SGU data is organized by name so I went alphabetically until I got tired.

Here it is:

SGU

primary care:112
non primary care: 27

SABA

primary care:101
non primary care: 26

Chi Sqr = 0.046 (p<0.17)

There is no real difference -- at least from the data I included. Feel free to submit your improved analysis.

you know you CAN organize the sgu stuff by specialty, just click on the tag specialty and it will organize by it (as opposed to the default alphabetical names)...

plus this was comparing UAG and SGU, not saba- the drop in match numbers at UAG should be of a concern...is it because less are applying to the US for residency OR is it because less are matching into US spots (even if the same number are applying).


so you should use these numbers for sgu

primary care = 292
non-primary care =132

though i think primary care usually doesn't include psych and instead includes ob/gyn.

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good point, i have no idea why there is that downward trend...

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lol, i wondered why the numbers from the previous post looked weird. you all weave a convincing argument for sgu

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"The Dude abides."

Using Rokshana's numbers...

SGU

primary care:292
non primary care: 132

SABA

primary care:101
non primary care: 26

Chi Sqr = 5.43 (p < 0.02)

So, it appears that SGU has a higher placement rate to nonprimary care residencies than Saba. I am not too surprised. As I mentioned earlier, there are a lot of caveats to think about when interpreting this. First of all, you have to assume that everyone tried to get into a nonprimary care field and only took primary care because they couldn't get something else (which is obviously a faulty assumption). Also, to ascribe a school effect, you would have to control for USMLE scores because they have a large impact on placements. SGU is more selective and, as a result, will probably have higher USMLE scores which translates to better placements. Still, even with all these disclaimers I think it is reasonably safe to say SGU has a better placement rate.

The real question is whether the improved placement rate is worth extra cost. I recently posted a breakeven analysis that showed that the extra cost of SGU was worth it if attending SGU tripled your chance of getting a non primary care residency. Assuming the data are correct, this suggests that SGU's rate is almost double Saba's. While SGU's rate is not high enough to justify the cost, the data are pretty favorable for SGU.

Maybe its just me, but perhaps medical schools should be evaluated on wider grounds than simply the medical school's ability to land their students OUTSIDE of primary care. Seeing as primary care physicians are most in need, perhaps there should be other elements in the equation?

To me this just further exemplifies and exacerbates the unbridled commodification of healthcare...

Another question : if Saba somehow came across $100 million could they perhaps place their graduates outside of primary care on the level of SGU?