Characteristics of the first two years of applicants to a new emergency medicine residency program.

Background: To the best of our knowledge, no study has compared the effect of using the Electronic Residency Application Service (ERAS) on applicant pool characteristics for a new emergency medicine (EM) residency program.

Objective: We sought to compare applicants in an EM residency program's first year, in which the ERAS is not typically used, to applicants in year 2 (using ERAS).

Methods: We reviewed the applications to the new University of Utah EM residency program for the entering classes of 2005 (year 1) and 2006 (year 2).

Results: In total, 130 and 458 prospective residents applied during year 1 and year 2, respectively. Applicants using and not using ERAS were similar in average Step 1 score (211.8 vs. 212.4, respectively; p = 0.791), previously failed Step 1 or Step 2 attempt (12.1% vs. 11.0%, respectively; p = 0.729), previous failure to match in a residency program (8.6% vs. 4.6%, respectively; p = 0.083), previous residency training (18.8% vs. 14.9%, respectively; p = 0.288), and the percent who had completed an EM clerkship (95.3% vs. 93.0%, respectively; p = 0.342). Applicants not using ERAS were more likely to have been remediated in medical school (13.2% vs. 4.2%; p < 0.001) and to have a Standardized Letter of Recommendation (SLOR) (87% vs. 78%; p = 0.024). Applicants using ERAS were more likely to have a SLOR match estimate of "very competitive" (38.2% vs. 54.1%; p = 0.004). Applicants were similar in having attended a "top tier" medical school (44.5% vs. 41.3%, p = 0.508).

Conclusion: Despite significantly fewer applicants, those applying without the use of ERAS to a new EM residency program were generally comparable to the applicant pool that did permit the use of ERAS. The larger number of applicants the second year likely reflects the use of ERAS.