The Impact of a Gap Year on Medical Student Match Outcomes in Plastic Surgery
Joseph Mellia, Lior Levy*, Dillan Villavisanis, Abena Gyasi, Olachi Oleru, Nargiz Seyidova, Peter J. Taub
Division of Plastic & Reconstructive Surgery, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY
Matching into an integrated plastic surgery residency program is notoriously difficult. Some medical students take time away from medical school to pursue research fellowships or other activities in their gap years to bolster their portfolio before applying, however the impact on match outcomes remains unclear. This retrospective study aimed to assess how gap years related to odds of matching at an integrated plastic surgery residency program.
All Electronic Residency Application Service applications to the integrated plastic surgery residency program at Mount Sinai from the 2017-2018 to the 2021-2022 cycles were included in this study. Match results were determined using online public sources. The relationship between gap years and matching was determined with multivariate logistic regression.
1298 applications were analyzed and the results are presented in Table 1. 557 (42.9%) of them completed one or more gap years. Of the students that completed a gap year, 47.2% did not match and 52.8% matched (P<0.001). Of those that did not complete a gap year, 28.6% did not match and 71.4% matched (P< 0.001). Applicants that attended a school without an associated plastic surgery program were 69.9% less likely to match, even if they completed a gap year (P<0.001). The same pattern holds true for those that attended a medical school not in the top 50 highest ranked schools, for which their odds are 63.9% less likely to match (P<0.001). For those in the top 25 medical schools, research fellows were more than 3.6 times more likely to match (P<0.001).
Interestingly, it seems doing a gap year did not make up for going to a medical school without an associated plastic surgery program or those not attending a top 50 school.
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