157 - Securing a Residency Position at All Costs: Trends in PM&R Cross Applicant Data from 2019-2023

Objectives: As the number of applicants to Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation (PM&R) residency continues to outpace available positions, this study examines the trends in cross applicant data among PM&R applicants from 2019-2023.

Design:
All data were retrieved from the Cross Specialty Applicant Data published by the AAMC for the ERAS^® 2019-2023 seasons. Among 22 medical specialties included, applications for PGY-1 positions in Preliminary Internal Medicine, Preliminary General Surgery, and Transitional Years were excluded. This modified dataset was used to calculate the total number of instances where a PM&R applicant concurrently applied to another individual specialty in the same application season (“cross applications”), most common specialties PM&R applicants cross applied to, and the trends of these figures over 5 years. These data were further stratified by international medical graduates (IMGs) and US medical graduates.

Results: While PM&R applicants increased from 1,106 to 1,297 from 2019-2023, the number of cross applications with other specialties decreased from 2,479 to 2,342. Cumulatively over 5 years, IMGs represented 29.7% of PM&R applicants, but disproportionately made up 50.6% of cross applications. Of note, 72.8% of these cumulative IMGs applying to PM&R cross applied to Internal Medicine. Family Medicine and Internal Medicine have consistently remained the top specialties for cross application with 37.0% and 40.0% of PM&R applicants cumulatively applying to these specialties, respectively. Cross applications to other individual specialties never exceeded 23% during any single year. Amidst declining cross applications among PM&R applicants, 4 specialties demonstrated at least 20% growth over 5 years: Orthopedic Surgery, Otolaryngology, Nuclear Medicine, and Emergency Medicine.

Conclusions: From 2019-2023, a disproportionate majority of cross applications among PM&R applicants were from IMGs, with Family Medicine and Internal Medicine being the most popular cross application specialties. Despite overall decreasing cross applications, select specialties that have generally been considered more competitive are increasing in cross application with PM&R.