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 took place in 2022 with the purpose of supporting under-represented students with their transition to sub-interns and residency applicants. This study describes the long-term match outcomes of the PREPPED 2022 cohort.
Materials and Methods: The PREPPED 2022 course was a 2-day course hosted in San Diego, CA in 2022. A post-match survey was sent to the PREPPED 2022 cohort in late 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 to the PREPPED 2022 post-match survey. 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. PREPPED 2022 students received interviews at 93.1% of the programs they completed a sub-internship. Students endorses that PREPPED 2022 helped improve their performance in sub-internships (78%), feel confident in their sub-internships (72%), and identify mentors (61%). Students endorsed that the most useful sessions included “Common Consults”, “Suture Lab”, and the two panels regarding “Success in Sub-internships” and “Applying to Residency”. A total of 17 PREPPED 2022 students applied to the 2023 match, of which 35% dual applied. On average, PREPPED 2022 students applied to 87 (SD 6.5) programs and received 14.5 (SD 8.4) interviews. A total of 13 PREPPED 2022 students matched into plastic surgery (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. About 29% of PREPPED 2022 students who matched did so at a program they were exposed to via home program, sub-internship, or research fellowship. Students endorsed that the networking opportunities at PREPPED helped them complete an away rotation (35%) or interview (53%) at an institution of someone from PREPPED.
Conclusions: PREPPED is a promising venue to help recruitment of UIM students into plastic surgery by improving preparation for the sub-internship and application process. The strengths of PREPPED include mentorship, networking, acquiring technical skills, and seeing common consults. Further study is warranted to further examine results from the PREPPED 2023 course and beyond.