key: cord-0866119-utxd0i8z
authors: Lopez, Christopher D.; Girard, Alisa; Bekisz, Jonathan M.; Suresh, Visakha; Yang, Robin
title: The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Plastic Surgery Match Rates
date: 2022-04-25
journal: Plast Reconstr Surg
DOI: 10.1097/prs.0000000000009112
sha: 9fa81945214e2d6db707752b05cc97836b1ae8f2
doc_id: 866119
cord_uid: utxd0i8z

nan

T he COVID-19 pandemic has been the impetus for many changes in medical education, including in the 2021 plastic and reconstructive surgery residency match process. Clerkships were postponed, leaving students with abbreviated, ad hoc schedules and nonstandardized grading policies. 1 Disruptions also occurred nationally, with suspension of United States Medical Licensing Examination testing and the discontinuation of Step 2 CS. Perhaps most importantly for the plastic and reconstructive surgery match process, students were restricted from visiting other institutions, thus eliminating in-person interactions with programs and requiring interviews to be virtual. 2 It is not clear what impact these changes had on the 2021 plastic and reconstructive surgery match process.

Given that most students who match into integrated plastic and reconstructive surgery programs have a combination of excellent clerkship grades, high board scores, and several publications, other aspects of the application have been deemed critical for distinguishing applicants, such as letters of recommendation and prior personal knowledge of the applicant. 3 This has been the impetus for many applicants participating in two or three subinternship rotations at programs outside their home program, spending a mean period of 9.2 weeks on these rotations. 4 These experiences have been shown to be critical to the match process; in a 2016 survey of plastic and reconstructive surgery program directors, 16.7 percent reported that an away rotation at their institution would guarantee an interview. 4 In an analysis of the 2013 and 2014 integrated plastic and reconstructive surgery match, 29 percent matched at a program where they had completed a visiting clinical rotation. 5 However, with COVID-19 restrictions eliminating this key factor, both programs and applicants have been left with a paucity of information about one another, with only virtual modalities (virtual subinternships and interviews) to address this deficit.

Integrated plastic and reconstructive surgery residents were identified and recorded between 2015 and 2021 to determine whether they matched at residencies affiliated with their medical school. Public domain information search tools were used (e.g., residency program websites and social media accounts). Independent-track residents were excluded. Following the public release of the 2021 match data, trends from the 2015 through 2021 years were calculated. Only four programs had absent or incomplete public information that was not fully recoverable with additional public domain search. A total of 82 programs and 1197

Related digital media are available in the full-text version of the article on www.PRSJournal.com. integrated residents were included, and the chi-square statistic was used.

More applicants matched at their home program in 2021 (26.9 percent) than in the previous six years (17.2 percent, p = 0.001) (Fig. 1) . Furthermore, 2021 was the only year with a greater than 25 percent match rate at a home institution. (See Table, 

It is notable that in an application cycle when inperson interaction was severely limited, the national match trend significantly favored home applicants who were able to participate in live subinternships. More than one in four plastic and reconstructive surgery applicants matched at their home program. While further investigation is clearly warranted, these findings suggest that in the setting of limited information about applicants, firsthand knowledge of an applicant's potential "fit" for a residency may supersede even standardized metrics such as examination scores and publications. With the advent of changes such as the introduction of pass/fail to Step 1 of the United States Medical Licensing Examination, the significance of these findings cannot be understated. 

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Yang 601 North Caroline Street, Suite 8161 Baltimore, Md. 21287 ryang14@jhmi.edu Instagram: @robinyangmddds Correspondence to Dr. Lopez 601 North Caroline Street

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National Resident Matching Program. Results of the 2020 NRMP program director survey

Away rotations and matching in integrated plastic surgery residency: Applicant and program director perspectives

A closer look at the 2013 to 2014 integrated plastic surgery match

The authors have no financial disclosures to report. No funding was received for this article.The first two authors should be considered co-first authors.

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