The COVID-19 pandemic is anticipated to impact the 2021-22 Residency Application cycle, though in different ways than this past year. The Coalition for Physician Accountability (CoPA) released guidelines for Away rotations in general and all of the Emergency Medicine stakeholder organizations put together a detailed Consensus Statement that you can read here.
Despite this attempt to provide clarity, there are still a lot of questions as to what this really means for students, especially those without a traditional "home" rotation available.
Below is some Q&A on common questions that have come up in response to these guidelines.
When can students complete "away" rotations? These are not supposed to be available before August 1, 2021. However, this restriction does not apply to students without a "home" rotation. Those students can take the first available opportunity at an institution that is open to "away" rotators.
How many rotations can students complete? The recommendation is one or two rotations at Residency Programs (usually called something like "Sub-Internship" or "Advanced Elective"). If two rotations, then either one "home" and one "away" or two "away" rotations. Other EM rotations do not count towards this total, including sub-specialty rotations (like Ultrasound or Pedi-EM) that take place at a Residency Program.
What if I have two separate "home" sites available to me? While this is not available for many students, you can do both, but you should then NOT do an away rotation. If you are looking to be considered outside of the region where your medical school is you are likely to be better off doing only one of the "home" sites and doing an "away" rotation somewhere else you are interested in going to.
How many SLOE's should I have this year? The recommendation is two SLOE's from Residency Program Leadership (Residency SLOE). The other letters in your application can be from the other types of SLOE's, but two Residency SLOE's should always take precedence in planning your application. However, having just one of these letters is NOT going to be disqualifying. Having three or four Residency SLOE's is strongly discouraged and will likely result in some application reviewers down-rating your application.
Do I need to do an "away"? Only having one Residency SLOE will not hurt your application. However, there is added value in having two separate residencies evaluate your performance and candidacy for EM. If one letter is not particularly strong the other letter can compensate for that, especially if growth is shown from one rotation to the next. This is why EM has always preferred that students do two rotations. The lack of a second SLOE may have hurt some applicants in the 2021 Match who would not have faced similar challenges getting interviews in a previous year when a second letter would have been available to provide reassurance.
There is still a lot we don't know about what the 2021-22 Application cycle will look like, including whether interviews will be in-person, virtual, or a hybrid of the two.
If you have other questions, or want some additional clarification, please submit those in the comments section below.
