A comparison of match outcomes between traditional medical degree and dual-degree applicants

Bryce R Christensen; Chad M Becnel; Leland P Chan; Paul D Minetos; John F Clarke; Marc J Kahn

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0244147

. 2020 Dec 18;15(12):e0244147. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0244147

A comparison of match outcomes between traditional medical degree and dual-degree applicants

Bryce R Christensen ^1,², Chad M Becnel ^1,³, Leland P Chan ^1,⁴, Paul D Minetos ¹, John F Clarke ¹, Marc J Kahn ^5,^*

Editor: Leonidas G Koniaris⁶

¹Tulane University School of Medicine and A.B. Freeman School of Business, New Orleans, Louisiana, United States of America

²PGY-1 Resident, Department of Internal Medicine, Brooke Army Medical Center, San Antonio, Texas, United States of America

³PGY-1 Resident, Department of Surgery, Tulane University Medical Center, New Orleans, Louisiana, United States of America

⁴PGY-1 Resident, Department of Emergency Medicine, New York University Grossman School of Medicine, New York, New York, United States of America

⁵Dean, School of Medicine, Department of Medicine, University of Nevada Las Vegas School of Medicine, Las Vegas, Nevada, United States of America

⁶Indiana University, UNITED STATES

Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

^✉

* E-mail: marc.kahn@unlv.edu

Roles

Bryce R Christensen: Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Resources, Software, Supervision, Validation, Visualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

Chad M Becnel: Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Resources, Software, Supervision, Validation, Visualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

Leland P Chan: Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Resources, Software, Supervision, Validation, Visualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

Paul D Minetos: Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Resources, Software, Supervision, Validation, Visualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

John F Clarke: Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Resources, Software, Supervision, Validation, Visualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

Marc J Kahn: Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Resources, Software, Supervision, Validation, Visualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

Leonidas G Koniaris: Editor

PMCID: PMC7748145 PMID: 33338062

Abstract

Background

Dual degrees combining and MD with another professional degree (MPH, MBA, or PhD) are becoming more common in an attempt to increase an applicant’s competitivity for a residency.

Objective

This study was designed to assess differences in MD-only and dual degree MD applicants with respect to applicant characteristics and match outcomes.

Methods

Utilizing the voluntarily-reported publicly available 2017–2019 Texas STAR database, we assessed applicants from 115 medical schools. Texas STAR indicates that over this time period, there were 18,224 responses for a response rate of 43.8%. Comparisons were made between groups using student’s t-test and chi-squared analysis.

Results

Compared to MD only students, MD/MPH applicants had a higher propensity towards primary care specialties. MD/PhD applicants did not differ versus MD only applicants in their selection of primary care specialties, or of competitive specialties. MD/MBA applicants chose more competitive specialties and less primary care specialties. Despite all these differences, match rates were not different comparing MD only and dual-degree students.

Conclusions

Despite the growing popularity of combined MD programs, such programs do not appear to increase applicant match competitivity.

Introduction

As the competition for post-graduate residency positions increases, medical students have turned to supplementary graduate education to distinguish themselves from their peers. Because more often physician leaders are called on to perform administrative and executive functions in addition to their clinical responsibilities, additional degrees in management have been particularly appealing [1–3]. These programs allow students to complete both a traditional doctorate of medicine (MD) degree and a supplementary degree in less time than students would need to complete each degree separately. Examples of these programs are Master of Public Health (MPH), Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), and Master of Business Administration (MBA). Such degree programs also offer opportunities to reshape personal ideologies and beliefs, shift perspective on traditional administrative and clinical functions of medical practitioners, and create nuanced ideas on the role of the physician in a multidisciplinary team environment [2, 3].

Over the past few decades, allopathic medical degrees combined with other graduate degrees have become more popular to fill the growing demand. For instance, the number of MD/MPH programs have more than doubled between 1992 to 2013—from just under 25% to well over 50% of MD-granting institutions in the United States [4]—and the number of MD/MBA programs has increased by tenfold within the past 20 years [5]. Furthermore, MD/PhD programs have increased from only a handful of schools to over 90 [6]. The dramatic rise in each of these programs is notable, but the impact of the second degree on academic results and residency placement is unknown. Completing two degrees at once leads to a substantial increase in demand for time, resources, and workload [1]. While the short-term tradeoff of time and money for a second degree may be applicable to the physician’s long term career goals, the short-term benefit to residency application and match rates is yet unstudied.

In addition, because specialty choice and residency program selection can have a large impact on career trajectories, the influence of these degrees on match odds may affect the applicant’s future—especially with regard to primary care specialties and traditionally competitive specialties. The NRMP considers residencies in Family Medicine, Internal Medicine, Internal Medicine–Pediatrics (combined), and Pediatrics to be “primary care specialties,” [7] and residencies in Dermatology, Orthopedic Surgery, Otolaryngology, Neurological Surgery, Integrated Plastic Surgery, Thoracic Surgery, and Vascular Surgery to be “competitive,” as there are more applicants than available positions [8]. Though many studies have described these degree programs individually, no study has sought to compare residency applicant characteristics based on the completion of a dual-degree program.

Materials and methods

Medical students from 115 institutions covering the years 2017–2019 were surveyed in their final semester of medical school regarding their experience with the residency match process by the publicly available Texas Seeking Transparency in Application to Residency Database (“Texas STAR Database”) [9]. This voluntary database seeks anonymous self-reported input from medical students on various aspects of their residency application including information about the applicant (board scores, extracurriculars, research experiences, school quartiles, and membership in honor societies) and information about the applicant’s choices during the residency application process. The Texas STAR Database acts as an information clearinghouse, where applicant data is aggregated anonymously. The database includes information from 115 US allopathic medical schools. For students applying to residency in the 2017–2019 time period, 18,224 students completed the Texas STAR survey for a response rate of 43.8%.

For this study, data were analyzed at the individual resident level, not as an aggregate. Statistical analyses between sample groups were performed. For determination of statistical significance, two-tailed student’s t-test was used for comparisons of means. Because of the large data set, chi square analysis was used for comparisons of frequencies. The reported cohort of “No Graduate Degree” students was used as the baseline group when comparing relevant cohorts, using a p-value <0.05 to confirm significant findings. Data within tables marked with an asterisk were found to be significant.

Of particular note, Texas STAR does not separate Internal Medicine-Emergency Medicine as a discrete category and was eliminated in our data as those applicants were included in the Internal Medicine or Emergency Medicine subsets [9].

As this study involved publicly available data from a national database that is deidentified, IRB exemption was deemed by the authors according to university policy.

Results and discussion

MD/MPH comparisons

As shown in Table 1, dual-degree students did not display a significantly different overall match rate than their single-degree MD counterparts, regardless of any additional degree. For specialty comparisons and applicant characteristics comparisons, specific significant differences in dual-degree types were noted.

Table 1.

	MD Only (n = 9261)	MD/MPH (n = 481)	MD/PhD (n = 340)	MD/MBA (n = 134)
Match Rate	87.40%	90.00%	85.00%	88.80%
p-value		0.092	0.192	0.628

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Compared to MD-only students, a significantly lower percentage of MD/MPH students matched into Anesthesiology, Dermatology, Orthopedic Surgery, and Radiology. A significantly larger percentage of MD/MPH students matched into Family Medicine and Obstetrics and Gynecology than MD-only students (Table 2). No reported MD/MPH applicants matched into Thoracic Surgery and Child Neurology. Additionally, a significantly higher percentage of MD/MPH students matched into primary care specialties (Table 2). Applicant characteristic comparisons showed that MD/MPH students had significantly higher percentage of Gold Humanism Honor Society (GHHS) membership, research experiences, research presentations, research publications, leadership experiences, volunteer experiences, and interviews attended. MD/MPH students had a significantly lower average United States Medical Licensing Examination (USMLE) Step 1 and Step 2 scores, percentage of Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Medical Society (AOA) membership, and number of honored clerkships. The number of interviews that applicants applied to were not significantly different between groups (Table 3).

Table 2. Specific specialty comparisons and competitive/primary care comparisons.

Specialty	MD Only (n = 8090)	MD/MPH (n = 433)	MD/PhD (n = 289)	MD/MBA (n = 119)
Anesthesiology	5.8%	2.1%^*	6.2%	7.6%
Child Neurology	0.8%	0.0%	2.4%^*	1.7%
Dermatology	2.0%	0.5%^*	1.7%	3.4%
Emergency Medicine	9.2%	9.9%	2.1^*	6.7%
Family Medicine	8.9%	14.1%^*	2.1%^*	2.5%^*
Internal Medicine	17.1%	17.8%	21.5%	19.3%
Internal Medicine-Pediatrics	2.2%	2.8%	0.7%	0.0%
Internal Medicine-Preliminary	1.9%	0.7%	4.8%^*	1.7%
Neurological Surgery	0.8%	0.9%	3.1%^*	0.0%
Neurology	2.2%	2.1%	6.2%	3.4%
Obstetrics & Gynecology	7.1%	12.7%^*	2.8%	6.7%
Ophthalmology	2.3%	1.2%	1.4%	6.7%^*
Orthopedic Surgery	3.7%	1.8%^*	1.4%^*	5.0%
Otolaryngology	1.7%	1.4%	1.4%	0.8%
Pathology	0.8%	1.4%	6.2%^*	0.0%
Pediatrics	12.2%	14.8%	10.0%	6.7%
Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation	1.2%	0.9%	0.3%	3.4%^*
Plastic Surgery	0.9%	0.7%	0.7%	1.7%
Psychiatry	5.3%	5.5%	5.9%	9.2%
Radiation Oncology	0.6%	1.2%	4.2%^*	0.8%
Radiology	3.5%	0.7%^*	4.8%	5.0%
Radiology-Interventional	0.7%	0.5%	0.7%	0.0%
Surgery	5.6%	4.8%	5.2%	3.4%
Surgery-Preliminary	0.3%	0.5%	0.7%	0.0%
Thoracic Surgery	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%	0.8%^*
Transitional Year	1.2%	0.2%	2.1%	1.7%
Urology	1.7%	0.7%	1.4%	1.7%
Vascular Surgery	0.3%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%
Primary Care	42.3%	50.1%^*	39.1%	30.3%^*
Competitive Specialties	5.0%	3.0%	5.9%	9.2%^*

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*p<0.05

Table 3. Applicant characteristics comparisons.

Characteristic	MD Only (n = 8090)	MD/MPH (n = 433)	MD/PhD (n = 289)	MD/MBA (n = 119)
USMLE Step 1 Score	235	230^*	238^*	232
USMLE Step 2 Score	248	246^*	247	243^*
Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Society	23.3%	17.1%^*	21.1%^*	15.1%^*
Gold Humanism Honor Society	13.3%	24.9%^*	9.7%^*	17.6%^*
Honored Clerkships	3.4	2.9^*	3.3	2.4^*
Research Experiences	3.3	4.3^*	5.6^*	4.1^*
Abstracts, Pres, Posters	3.6	4.8^*	9.2^*	4.7^*
Peer-Rev Publications	1.7	2.3^*	6.9^*	2.2^*
Volunteer Experiences	6.6	7.1^*	5.8^*	6.4
Leadership Positions	3.7	4.7^*	3.7	4.6^*
Programs Applied	39.3	39.6^*	32.1^*	41.0
Interviews Attended	12.5	13.1^*	11.7^*	12.0

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*p<0.05

MD/PhD comparisons

Compared to MD-only students, a significantly lower percentage of MD/PhD students matched into Emergency Medicine, Family Medicine, Obstetrics and Gynecology, and Orthopedic Surgery. A significantly larger percentage of MD/PhD students matched into Child Neurology, Internal Medicine-Preliminary, Neurological Surgery, Neurology, Pathology, and Radiation Oncology than MD-only students (Table 2). No reported MD/PhD applicants matched into Thoracic Surgery or Vascular Surgery. Additionally, MD/PhD students did not significantly differ in their percentage of both competitive fields and primary care fields (Table 2). Applicant characteristic comparisons showed that MD/PhD students had significantly higher USMLE Step 1 score, average number of research experiences, research presentations, and research publications. MD/PhD students had a significantly lower percentage of GHHS membership, volunteer experiences, average number of programs applied, and average number of interviews attended. USMLE Step 2 score, percentage of AOA membership, number of honored clerkships, and leadership positions were not significantly different between groups (Table 3).

MD/MBA comparisons

Compared to MD-only students, a significantly lower percentage of MD/MBA students matched into Family Medicine, and a significantly higher percentage matched into Ophthalmology, Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation (PM&R), and Thoracic Surgery (Table 2). No reported MD/MBA applicants matched into Internal Medicine-Pediatrics, Neurological Surgery, Pathology, Interventional Radiology, Surgery (Preliminary), and Vascular Surgery. Additionally, a significantly higher percentage of MD/MBA students matched into competitive specialties, and a significantly lower percentage matched into primary care specialties (Table 2). Applicant characteristic comparisons showed that MD/MBA students had a significantly higher number of research experiences, research presentations, research publications, and leadership experiences. MD/MBA students had a significantly lower average USMLE Step 2 score, percentage of AOA membership, and number of honored clerkships. USMLE Step 1 score, volunteer experiences, and interview information were not significantly different between groups (Table 3).

Supplementing a medical degree with an additional degree requires substantial temporal and financial investments, and students may look for these degrees to separate themselves from other applicants when applying to residency. Whether these dual-degree programs provide a competitive advantage throughout the application process is up for debate. Our research sought to identify trends in applicant data to provide a foundation for determining whether this advantage exists or not.

We found that survey results of NRMP Residency Match performance did not vary between the various MD degree combinations. Though more research must be performed to determine the effects of secondary graduate educational degrees and specialty choices, breakdowns of specialty choice and degree-specific quality markers within the reported Match data reveal interesting combinations. The correlation between an MPH and primary care specialties may be self-fulfilling in that students who are interested in population and preventive health specialties find particular value in a degree centered on analyzing trends in public health at scale. Others have found that students with combined MD/MPH degrees have found that a higher percentage of dual degree students practice in academic settings and practice primary care. Additionally, MD/PhD students showed higher percentages of fields where research and lab work are more prevalent such as Pathology, Neurological Surgery, and Radiation Oncology. This observation may also be self-fulfilling, as a PhD degree requires tremendous research effort and interest. MD/MBA students chose NRMP’s competitive specialties at nearly twice the rate of MD-only students with no statistically significant differences in Match rates between the two cohorts. One interesting reason may be due to the financial implications of competitive specialties. These specialties are competitive by NRMP definition, but they are also many of the top-earning specialties among practicing physicians. The natural focus on finance and money within the MBA degree may lend itself to more competitive specialties. It is important to note that the causality of these associations is not clear. Do particular students choose specific dual-degree programs, or do different programs lead to different application characteristics? While the rationale and causal relationship is unknown, the differences between student outcomes in the programs are important for consideration in future applicant groups.

Traditional debate against dual-degrees during medical school typically includes the rigor of adding a second degree and focuses on the importance of prioritizing performance in medical school as a guarantor of success in the Match process. This argument that a second degree inherently causes a larger workload for medical students is logical and perhaps true in many cases. Our comparisons were able to elucidate the evidence of these arguments. For standardized markers of medical student knowledge, the National Board of Medical Examiners’ USMLE Step 1 and Step 2 –CK exams can be used as nationally standardized markers of performance at key checkpoints in the medical school curriculum (traditionally, Step 1 is taken following the completion of “pre-clinical” content and Step 2 –CK is taken following the completion of one year of “clinical” experience at the medical school level). Membership in AOA and GHHS may provide additional insight into academic achievement. When comparing Step 1 and Step 2 –CK exam scores, MD/MPH students scored lower on both standardized exams, MD/MBA students scored lower on Step 2, and MD/PhD students scored higher on Step 1. These differences were significant in statistical comparison, but when these scores are compared to national averages, they are easily within one standard deviation of the mean. Comparing honors society membership, a lower percentage of MD/MPH and MD/MBA students were inducted into AOA, a higher percentage of MD/MPH students were inducted into GHHS, and a lower percentage of MD/PhD students were inducted into GHHS. AOA membership is typically based on numerical success in clerkships, so it may be expected that the MD/MPH and MD/MBA cohorts showed lower percentages because of their lower percentage of honored clerkships. GHHS is traditionally elected by peers, and MD/PhD students may take many years to complete their PhD, subsequently lowering their chances of knowing people in their graduating class. Our comparisons of academic success for dual-degree programs suggests that though these programs may increase student time commitment and workload, the reduction in time may not be such that it prohibits academic success in their primary medical degree.

Competitiveness within the applicant’s chosen specialty can be assessed broadly using numbers of interviews attended and number of programs to which the student applied. The number of interviews attended acts as a useful, albeit imprecise, marker of number of interview offers received by the applicant, with the required assumption that the applicant attended as many interviews as possible with asymptotic returns depending on the specialty. MD/MPH students had a statistically higher number of interviews attended compared to all degree combinations surveyed, but MD/PhD students had significantly fewer applications sent and interviews attended. When taking into consideration the near identical Match rates of MD/MPH and MD/PhD with other students, multiple interesting hypotheses arise. MD/PhD students applying to fewer programs for residency may be used as a stand-in for either confidence in the student’s application or can be viewed as a byproduct of fewer residency programs amenable to research-oriented applicants. Additionally, MD/MPH students may attend more interviews as a means to “hedge” lower board scores and give themselves a higher likelihood of matching.

The current study is not without limitation. While the Texas STAR data includes a combination of many subjective and objective metrics, the database does not account for whether these secondary degrees were obtained before, concurrent to, or after an MD curriculum. Additionally, the Texas STAR database is a voluntary, opt-in, survey-based database that is subject to survey and selection bias. The participating programs are also skewed regionally, with the majority of participating medical schools from the Southern region of the United States and a small number of schools from the Western region. Despite these limitations, the Texas STAR database is the most descriptive accessible dataset for dual-degree students, as the AAMC and NRMP do not publish data on degrees other than MD/PhD.

Conclusions

This data from the Texas Star database between 2017 and 2019 shows multiple statistically significant differences between MD students and MD/MBA, MD/MPH, and MD/PhD students. However, importantly, no significant difference was found in match rates between the different degree combinations, despite differences in specialty selection. Because the results of our study are limited in that the data is drawn from self-reported, voluntary surveys, further studies must be performed to validate and explain our reported relationships.

Supporting information

S1 Data

(XLSX)

Click here for additional data file.^{(4.8MB, xlsx)}

Data Availability

All relevant data are within the manuscript and its Supporting information file.

Funding Statement

The author(s) received no specific funding for this work.

References

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PLoS One. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0244147.r001

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A comparison of match outcomes between traditional medical degree and dual-degree applicants

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Reviewer #1: This study presents residents data from over 100 institutions to examine the characteristics of residents with MD only vs dual degree MD and study the relationship of these degrees with match outcomes. This study is trying to fill the knowledge gap in match competivity by analyzing the data with additional degrees among MDs. There are several methodological and statistical issues that need to be addressed in this study.

Please specify the range of years (though this was specified in abstract and conclusion) that the data was achieved from STAR database and the total number of residents when describing your data. It is not clear, if the investigators used the aggregate data or resident level individual data in this study. If they have used an aggregate level data, ecological fallacy might exist and need to account for that. The clarity on the STAR database need to be elaborated together with the types of variables used.

The authors have used two-sample t-test to compare means. T-test is a parametric approach. Given the sample size, the central limit theorem might be applicable here. However, it is important to check the assumptions of the parametric approaches before applying t-tests.

Please specify the variables that were treated as continuous and those as categorical. There are some discrete variables, for example, programs applied, interviews attended. Treating these as continuous and using t-test might not be correct due to the skewness of the data. Please confirm and provide justification to treat these as continuous variables to apply t-tests.

In chi-square tests of proportions, some of the expected proportions are very small (with expected cell count <5). The chi-square tests will not be applicable for such small cell counts; however, you might want to check the significance tests using some exact methods (e.g. Fisher’s exact test).

Multiple pairwise comparisons are done here using MD alone as the comparison group. Were p-values accounted for these multiple testing? Please comment.

Since no significant difference was seen by degree types, please comment of the power of the tests to rule out any Type II errors.

The primary aim of this study was to compare the match rates by single vs dual degrees. It seems that there are several applicant characteristics that are significantly different between the degrees. These characteristics in addition to some baseline characteristics (such as age, gender, race/ethnicity, interest in area of medicine, etc. if any) might confound the relationship between the degrees and match rates. Did the authors see the relationship between the degrees and match rates in multivariable analysis?

Did the difference (no difference) exist by the school type (private, public)? Suggestion: You can analyze this by stratified analysis using school types as stratifying variables.

I totally understand the feasibility of the length/width of the table to present the actual p-values instead of p<0.05. However, it would be helpful to understand the strength of association is raw p-value is presented as supplement.

Since the study is voluntary and survey-based, the missing data might be of another limitation. Please comment on the range of item missing rates. Also comment on what strategies did you use to account for the missing data?

**********

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Reviewer #1: No

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PLoS One. 2020 Dec 18;15(12):e0244147. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0244147.r002

Author response to Decision Letter 0

1 Dec 2020

Editors of PLoS ONE

November 25, 2020

Dear Sirs:

Thank you for allowing us to resubmit our manuscript. We will address each of the reviewer’s comments as follows:

The data is from the publicly available Texas STAR database. We have attached a sample data set used for this study.

We will update your Data Availability statement on your behalf to reflect the information you provide.

We will make the required upload.

We will make the requested update. The corresponding author’s ORCHID iD is: 0000-0002-9781-9316

We thank the reviewer for their comments.

We added text to specify the years of the study data (2017-2019). The total number of residents is also included (18,224). We additionally clarified in the manuscript that this study used individual resident level data, not aggregate data.

We chose a simple t-test as is easily understood and widely used. Additionally, the variables studied are assumed to be parametric. As an example, the probability characteristics of USMLE scores are distributed according to a normal distribution by design. Because the probability distribution is defined, a parametric method (like the Student’s t-test) is appropriate. Similarly, our other variables are assumed parametric.

Continuous variables included USMLE scores, honored clerkships, research experiences, programs applied to, interview number and most of the variables in Table 3. Because of the large number of students in the data set (over 18,000) we assumed lack of skewness and a normal distribution.

None of the cells had less than a count of 5. Chi-squared analysis is typically used in such comparisons.

Multiple pairwise comparisons are done here using MD alone as the comparison group. Were p-values accounted for these multiple testing? Please comment.

P-values were accounted for multiple pairwise testing as suggested.

Since no significant difference was seen by degree types, please comment of the power of the tests to rule out any Type II errors.

The p-values in Table 1 suggest that we can exclude the null hypothesis with less than 95% certainty. For studies of this type, this is typically represented as the groups not being statistically different. Since our study included over 17,000 participants, we feel that the study has the power to rule out Type II errors.

Although interesting questions, the database does not include the additional information suggested by the reviewer. Further, as the data submitted is blinded, additional demographic information could make the data more identifiable. As such, it is not collected by Texas STAR.

Did the difference (no difference) exist by the school type (private, public)? Suggestion: You can analyze this by stratified analysis using school types as stratifying variables.

This is an interesting question but not one addressed by our current study.

Actual p-values are presented in Table 1.

We describe missing data in our discussion. Missing data is impossible to collect as participation in the Texas STAR database is voluntary.

We thank the reviewers for their thoughtful comments.

Sincerely,

Marc J. Kahn, MD, MBA

Dean and Professor of Medicine

UNLV School of Medicine

Attachment

Submitted filename: Response letter to PLoS ONE.docx

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PLoS One. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0244147.r003

Decision Letter 1

Leonidas G Koniaris

4 Dec 2020

A comparison of match outcomes between traditional medical degree and dual-degree applicants

PONE-D-20-32094R1

Dear Dr. Kahn,

We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements.

Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication.

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Kind regards,

Leonidas G Koniaris, MD

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Reviewers' comments:

PLoS One. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0244147.r004

Acceptance letter

Leonidas G Koniaris

9 Dec 2020

PONE-D-20-32094R1

A Comparison of Match Outcomes Between Traditional Medical Degree and Dual-degree Applicants

Dear Dr. Kahn:

I'm pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been deemed suitable for publication in PLOS ONE. Congratulations! Your manuscript is now with our production department.

If your institution or institutions have a press office, please let them know about your upcoming paper now to help maximize its impact. If they'll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team within the next 48 hours. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information please contact onepress@plos.org.

If we can help with anything else, please email us at plosone@plos.org.

Thank you for submitting your work to PLOS ONE and supporting open access.

Kind regards,

PLOS ONE Editorial Office Staff

on behalf of

Dr. Leonidas G Koniaris

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Associated Data

This section collects any data citations, data availability statements, or supplementary materials included in this article.

Supplementary Materials

S1 Data

(XLSX)

Click here for additional data file.^{(4.8MB, xlsx)}

Attachment

Submitted filename: Response letter to PLoS ONE.docx

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Data Availability Statement

All relevant data are within the manuscript and its Supporting information file.

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PERMALINK

A comparison of match outcomes between traditional medical degree and dual-degree applicants

Bryce R Christensen

Chad M Becnel

Leland P Chan

Paul D Minetos

John F Clarke

Marc J Kahn

Roles

Abstract

Background

Objective

Methods

Results

Conclusions

Introduction

Materials and methods

Results and discussion

MD/MPH comparisons

Table 1.

Table 2. Specific specialty comparisons and competitive/primary care comparisons.

Table 3. Applicant characteristics comparisons.

MD/PhD comparisons

MD/MBA comparisons

Conclusions

Supporting information

Data Availability

Funding Statement

References

Decision Letter 0

Leonidas G Koniaris

Roles

Author response to Decision Letter 0

Decision Letter 1

Leonidas G Koniaris

Roles

Acceptance letter

Leonidas G Koniaris

Roles

Associated Data

Supplementary Materials

Data Availability Statement

ACTIONS

PERMALINK

RESOURCES

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