DIFFERENCES: Preliminary, Transitional & Categorical Residency Programs

Preliminary (Prelim), Transitional and Categorical programs are words that mean different types of residency training.


The term "Categorical" is used to refer to actually getting into a residency program dedicated to the field you have chosen - while Preliminary and Transitional are "Pre-residency"

Preliminary is like doing an medical school internship again and is of two types - internal medicine and g.surgery. The choice depends on whether you wanna go into a cutting or a non-cutting field later on..

Whereas "Transitional" refers to a pre-residency year that concentrates on the type of residency that it is supposed to give a transition too - meaning, a radiololgy transitional will have a radiology flavour and so on..

Programs like Surgery, Radiology , PMR especially need a pre-residency year most of the times...

Note: Prelim / transitional year programs are probably tougher to get in than the traditional categorial programs in IM, FP, Peds, Psych. , coz all the AMGs trying to break into E-ROAD (Emergency Medicine, Radiology, Anesthesiology and Derm) use Prelim / Transitional years to try and get there.

Q. How to apply to Preliminary / Transitional Programs ? Do you need to "Apply" and Pay separately to Each subtype for a given Residency Program Offering Hospital / University, besides the Categorical ?

A. NO ! and thank goodness for that ! Saves some money , eh ? They say a Dollar Saved is a Dollar Earned - I say, technically, a Dollar Saved is MORE than a dollar earned ! I mean , to formally "save" a dollar, one needs to earn A dollar PLUS the Tax that will be deducted to leave us with a dollar ;-).

Hmmm, back to the question - on MyERAS, there will be check-boxes for each residency type offered by a particular program. You may tick on all of them or just the categorical, it will cost you the same - i.e. the cost of applying to one program. Click here to see an image of ERAS Screen shot showing the checkboxes. Hope that helps u nail what I mean ...


Whether selecting all checkboxes gives you an added advantage is debatable - for most IMGs, the limiting factor is the visa status. The Prelim and Transistional Year programs are one-year programs and program usually do not sponsor visas for just a year, unless that year is integrated into the main program - for example for the 4-year Neurology programs, the first year is a preliminary IM year . For Students on the F1 Visa, it must be noted that they could use their one-year "OPT Visa" for a prelim / transitional year - in case they don't get match in the categorical program OR if they aim for positions like Radiology, Surgery, PMR. etc.


Note: In some countries, like India, the word 'Prelims' is used to indicate the pre-final Medical school exams used to assess readiness for the main exam - Kindly do not confuse that word with the "Prelims" in the context of Residency Programs


Search Keywords to this blog article:

- "US medical student F1 OPT USMLE transition year"
- "what is prelim year"
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THE THREE KINDS OF RESIDENCY PROGRAMS

University Programs: The cream ! Research Opportunities, Academic orientation, Teaching Faculty and better fellowship placements.

University - Affiliated Community Programs: Research & Academic Opportunities - well atleast better than community programs !

Community Programs: These by definition are meant to serve the community. The faculty is not really obliged to teach residents but many senior physicians will tell you stuff anyways and help you. Generally speaking there will be more work ( often more than the 80-hour Resident week rule) and often more 'scutwork' Advantage ? More hands-on experience. However, this is a generalisation - not a law !

So which ones are better? If you are hell bent on getting that fellowship, University programs make that easier than community programs. Note the word 'easier' - which means if you get into community programs don't think it is the end of the road ! It means you will need to be more enterprising to get into a fellowship program later (which is not that tough I hear)

Thus, if you are thinking Fellowships :

University > University - Affiliated > Community