CaRMS released their stats from the 2016 match today. I get way too excited about the chance to analyze these numbers. That's especially true this time around since this the last year before I'm part of those numbers.
Anyway, here are the match rates to each specialty for those who ranked that specialty first, in order of competitiveness. The CFMS always puts out the stats below as well, but they take a few months to get them up and I get impatient.
| Specialty | % Matched 1st Choice Discipline | % Alternative Discipline | |
| Dermatology | 43.8% | 43.8% | |
| Plastic Surgery | 46.0% | 22.0% | |
| Emergency Medicine | 50.4% | 41.1% | |
| Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation | 60.0% | 20.0% | |
| Medical Microbiology | 63.6% | 18.2% | |
| Urology | 64.3% | 28.6% | |
| Neurosurgery | 66.7% | 12.5% | |
| Nuclear Medicine | 66.7% | 16.7% | |
| Otolaryngology | 69.0% | 21.4% | |
| Ophthalmology | 69.1% | 18.2% | |
| Obstetrics & Gynecology | 69.7% | 22.0% | |
| Anesthesiology | 73.4% | 17.3% | |
| Pediatrics | 74.9% | 18.0% | |
| Cardiac Surgery | 75.0% | 8.3% | |
| General Pathology | 75.0% | 25.0% | |
| Neurology - Pediatric | 75.0% | 25.0% | |
| Vascular Surgery | 75.0% | 25.0% | |
| Public Health & Preventive Medicine | 77.8% | 16.7% | |
| General Surgery | 78.6% | 11.2% | |
| Orthopedic Surgery | 87.3% | 7.3% | |
| Diagnostic Radiology | 88.2% | 9.2% | |
| Internal Medicine | 88.2% | 6.8% | |
| Psychiatry | 88.4% | 8.7% | |
| Neurology | 90.5% | 7.1% | |
| Family Medicine | 96.5% | 1.4% | |
| Anatomical Pathology | 100.0% | 0.0% | |
| Hematological Pathology | 100.0% | 0.0% | |
| Laboratory Medicine | 100.0% | 0.0% | |
| Medical Genetics | 100.0% | 0.0% | |
| Radiation Oncology | 100.0% | 0.0% | |
Ignoring the smaller specialties that tend to have a lot of year-to-year variance, the big things that jump out at me at the uniquely competitive years for PM&R, Urology and Internal Medicine. Diagnostic Radiology went right the other direction, with a rather uniquely uncompetitive match by their standards.
Derm, Plastics and Emerg continue their reign atop the competitiveness standings, which is no surprise, but they keep pushing that boundary further. Derm and Emerg are at least maintaining a decent back-up match rate. They both can fairly naturally back-up into Family Medicine, so that certainly helps. Plastics is another story... like most surgical specialties, it doesn't have a natural back-up option. All the other surgical specialties are decently competitive themselves and non-surgical specialties can stand out like a sore thumb in a Plastics-oriented application package.
As expected, Family Medicine remains the surest option - but not a guarantee - for those who simply want to match to something. Despite its increasing competitiveness, Internal is also the best non-FM option for a back-up specialty.
I'll likely post a bit more on this later - there's always a fair bit to parse out from the CaRMS numbers and this year is no exception. With the possible exception of some PM&R gunners, I don't think this year's stats should change anyone's approach for next year, but I'll try to go into more depth on that next time.
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