Updates From ERAS Leadership
New Fellowship Features Live
The 2024 ERAS season is off to a strong start. July fellowship cycle programs have begun reviewing applications in the newly updated Program Director’s WorkStation (PDWS). This season’s PDWS updates include more intuitive navigation, helpful Quick Links, and other useful features. We’re also adding information based on findings from the supplemental ERAS application that offers more information about applicants and supports holistic review.
U.S. Supreme Court Decision
Following the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision to end race-conscious admissions, we want to reiterate the AAMC’s disappointment in the decision and our ongoing commitment to supporting the development and training of a diverse health care workforce. The AAMC has developed a website including an overview of the cases, scholarly articles, and a comprehensive set of FAQs.
While medical resident selection is considered an employment practice and not directly impacted by the ruling, a decision that contributes to reducing diversity in undergraduate and medical school enrollment threatens to also reduce diversity in the residency applicant pool and the future health workforce.
Continuous Improvements
The ERAS team will continue its efforts to provide tools and resources that support residency and fellowship programs’ efforts to identify applicants whose experiences, goals and interests align with their missions.
As we move forward, our team continues to seek opportunities to improve the transition to residency – including the exciting new strategic collaboration with Thalamus – and to engage with our specialty and program partners to gauge their input and suggestions for future improvements.
ERAS Strategic Priorities
The supplemental ERAS application, which was offered from 2020-2023, yielded a wealth of useful data for residency applicants, medical school advisors, programs, and specialties. It also informed updates to the ERAS application for 2024, andfindings are presented in research reports on the AAMC website.
The AAMC has produced a new video exploring how data from the 2023 ERAS season may give learners insight into navigating the residency application process and help program staff glean information about the relationship between program signals, geographic preferences, and interview invitations across specialties. Organized into chapters by specialty, the 81-minute video can be viewed in its entirety or by chapter. It offers an analysis of findings for those specialties that participated in the supplemental ERAS application for the 2023 ERAS season. Viewers can review specialties individually and find information that may be useful as they prepare to navigate the 2024 residency application process. We hope you will share it with your colleagues and use it to feed discussions as you plan your applicant review strategy.
The 2024 ERAS application will give programs more tools to use in reviewing applications and home in on applicants whose experiences and goals fit their missions. All programs can use new geographic preference and setting information and an updated experiences section to gain insight into applicants. And among the 20 specialties that are participating in program signaling for the 2024 season, more than 92% of programs have also opted in, giving them an additional data point for reviewing candidates.
Following the successful launch of ERAS Analytics for Institutions last fall, the AAMC has updated this useful tool to include more access to real-time data for your institution. Earlier this year we added new features based on feedback from Designated Institutional Officials and other members of the community. You can easily access the analytics dashboard when you log in to the Program Director’s WorkStation. We are continuing to harness the power of ERAS data across the GME community. Our new strategic collaboration with Thalamus means that you will soon get an even richer set of data tools through the Thalamus Cerebellum Data & Analytics Dashboard.
As part of the AAMC’s ongoing modernization work, we are updating our suite of ERAS tools, including the PDWS. Program users who log in to review residency and fellowship applications will find a number of useful improvements that support holistic review, including:
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An intuitive interface that allows users to effortlessly define their desired filter criteria, enabling them to define their search results.
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A new filter search option
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Filters for geographic and setting preferences, experiences, and program signals (for participating residency programs).
ERAS Program Resources
New Items
PDWS Guides
Additional Resources
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