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Plastic Surgery Research, Education, And Preparation Promoting Equity And Diversity (prepped): Match Outcomes
Meera Reghunathan, MD1, Gabriela Sendek, MS
1, Jessica Blum, MD
2, Greta Davis, MD
3, Haripriya Ayyala, MD
4, Paris Butler, MD
4, Amber Leis, MD
5, Amanda Gosman, MD
1;
1UC San Diego, San Diego, CA, USA,
2University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, USA,
3UC San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA,
4Yale, New Haven, CT, USA,
5UC Irvine, Irvine, CA, USA
PURPOSE: Minority applicants face bias, socioeconomic barriers, and lower access to mentors that results in overall lower matriculation into plastic surgery. The inaugural PREPPED (Plastic Surgery Research, Education, and Preparation Promoting Equity and Diversity) course was a 2-day sub-internship preparation course hosted in San Diego, CA in 2022 for underrepresented students. This study describes the long-term match outcomes of the PREPPED 2022 cohort.
METHODS: A post-match survey was sent to the student cohort in March of 2023. Data analysis was performed using IBM SPSS.
RESULTS: A total of 30 students out of 33 total attendees (90.1% response rate) responded. Of the respondents, 60% were women, 47% identified as Black, and 40% did not have a home program. 60% of students decided to proceed into their 4th year of medical school while others did a research year. PREPPED 2022 students received interviews at 93.1% of sub-internship institutions. Students endorsed that the networking opportunities at PREPPED helped them receive an away rotation (35%) or interview (53%) and improve their performance in sub-internships (78%). On average, students applied to 87 programs and received 14.5 interviews. PREPPED students matched into plastic surgery with a 77% match rate as compared to the 74.9% match rate for U.S. senior nation-wide in the 2023 integrated plastic surgery match. Students matched at an average rank of 4.5 (SD 2.7) on their rank list.
CONCLUSION: PREPPED is a promising venue to help recruitment of under-represented students into plastic surgery by improving preparation for the sub-internship and application process.
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