Three Year US Medical Schools and Residency Implications for Dermatology

The concept of offering MD degrees to US medical students after 3 years of study is becoming popular again. Historically this was previously attempted in the 1970s, but concerns about graduate performance led to its demise. The motivation for its re-emergence is largely the same—more graduates to address a perceived future physician shortage and less debt for medical students (Grossman RI, Abramson SB. Needed: A Three-Year Medical Degree. Wall Street Jounal, page A11, February 18, 2016). Drs. Grossman and Abramson describe their experience with a 3 year medical school curriculum at one of our nation’s top medical school, New York University (NYU). When NYU initiated their 3 year program in 2013, accepted students had to know what type of residency they wanted so they could spend the first 6 weeks of medical school with that department. They were “pre-accepted” for residency at NYU into that specialty as long as they performed well academically in medical school. How “pre-acceptance” into residency programs during the first year of medical school will evolve will be of interest, especially for competitive specialties such as dermatology. At UTMB first year medical students already arrive on campus knowing that they want to specialize in dermatology. Is it possible that in the future all of the dermatology residency positions will be pre-matched for 3 year medical school graduates who had high MCAT scores?