Bunting Samuel R, Woodruff James N, Vidyasagar Nitin, Sheth Neeral K, Spitz Deborah, Babcock Christine, Arora Vineet
Acad Med. 2025 Feb 1;100(2):170-178. doi: 10.1097/ACM.0000000000005825. Epub 2024 Jul 23.
The medical education community is pursuing reforms addressing unsustainable growth in the number of residency applications per applicant and application costs. Little research has examined the prevalence or contributions of parallel applications (application to residency in multiple specialties) to this growth.
A retrospective analysis of Electronic Residency Application Service data provided by the Association of American Medical Colleges was conducted. The percentage of applicants applying to ≥ 1 specialty, mean number of specialties applied, number of submitted applications, and percentage of applicants to each specialty who were parallel applying were determined. MD, DO, and international (U.S. international medical graduate [IMG] and IMG) applicants were included.
The sample contained 586,246 applicant records from 459,704 unique applicants. The percentage of applicants who parallel applied decreased from 41.3% to 35.4% between 2009 and 2021. DO applicants were the only group for whom the percentage parallel applying increased (30.6% vs 32.1%). IMG (60.4% vs 49.1%) or USIMG applicants (69.6% vs 63.1%) were groups with the greatest percentage of applicants parallel applying each year (2009-2021). The mean number of specialties applied to when parallel applying also decreased from 2.96 in 2009 to 2.79 in 2021, overall. Between 2009 and 2021, mean number of applications increased for all applicant types among both single-specialty applicant and parallel-applying applicants. Among applicants who were single-specialty applying, mean number of applications grew from 38.6 in 2009 to 74.6 in 2021 and from 95.2 to 149.8 for parallel-applying applicants.
All applicant groups experienced decreases in percentages parallel applying except for DO applicants. Parallel application appears to be common and slowly declining, and does not appear to significantly contribute to increasing numbers of applications per candidate. Efforts to control the growth of applications per applicant should continue to focus on applicants' numbers of applications submitted to each specialty.
医学教育界正在推行改革，以应对每位申请人的住院医师申请数量和申请成本的不可持续增长。很少有研究探讨平行申请（申请多个专科的住院医师项目）在这种增长中的普遍性或影响。
对美国医学院协会提供的电子住院医师申请服务数据进行回顾性分析。确定申请≥1个专科的申请人百分比、平均申请专科数量、提交的申请数量以及每个专科的平行申请申请人百分比。纳入医学博士（MD）、医学博士（DO）以及国际申请人（美国国际医学毕业生[IMG]和国际医学毕业生）。
样本包含来自459,704名独特申请人的586,246条申请人记录。2009年至2021年间，平行申请的申请人百分比从41.3%降至35.4%。DO申请人是唯一平行申请百分比增加的群体（从30.6%增至32.1%）。国际医学毕业生（从60.4%降至49.1%）或美国国际医学毕业生申请人（从69.6%降至63.1%）是每年平行申请申请人百分比最高的群体（2009 - 2021年）。总体而言，平行申请时平均申请专科数量也从2009年的2.96降至2021年的2.79。2009年至2021年间，单专科申请人和平行申请申请人中所有申请人类型的平均申请数量均有所增加。在单专科申请的申请人中，平均申请数量从2009年的38.6增至2021年的74.6，平行申请申请人则从95.2增至149.8。
除了DO申请人外，所有申请人群体的平行申请百分比均有所下降。平行申请似乎很常见且呈缓慢下降趋势，似乎并未对每位候选人申请数量的增加产生显著影响。控制每位申请人申请数量增长的努力应继续聚焦于申请人向每个专科提交的申请数量。
