It's even more difficult to get into med school

WayOutWestMom
Fri, 10 Dec 2021 19:48:55 +0000

While last year’s application cycle saw a record increase in the number of applicants, early data for this year shows that increase has not been sustained. (No increase in the number of applicant this year, in fact, a small decrease over last year.)

And historically the number of med school applications have gone up and down, partly following the economy. The number of applications goes up when economic times are hard and down when other high paying jobs are plentiful (like during the tech boom of the mid-late 1990s)

And looking over the past 50 years, from 1971-1978, admission rates were even lower than they were last cycle. Admission rates ranged from 33% to 38% in those years. (Source: Medical education in the United States, 1980–1981 and 1981–82. Journal of the American Medical Association 246:2893–3044, 1981 and 248:3223–3328, 1982)

It should also be noted that the number of available of med school seats has seen HUGE increase in the past 20 years, increasing by 30% for MD programs and over 40% for DO programs. This means in absolutely numbers more students are getting admitted to med school now than were admitted in the mid-2000s when the admissions rates were much higher, close to 50% of applicants.

There are some employment issues in the post-residency job market in many specialties, particularly in pathology, radiation oncology and emergency medicine. (Oversupply of new residency graduates vs number of available jobs ) Additionally the ongoing Covid pandemic has depressed revenues for all hospitals and is making hospitals hesitant to hire new staff. The job market for physicians in popular areas (urban & suburban areas of the East and West Coasts) is tight.

Many of D2’s med school classmates are doing fellowships (and in at least one case adding a PhD to her fellowship) in order to delay their entry into an unfavorable job market.

Nurses, OTOH, are in short supply everywhere.