P.055 Does age matter in the CaRMS neurology match?

Abstract

Background: The Canadian Resident Matching Services (CaRMS) collects comprehensive data on residency applicants. However, match outcomes by age were not reported. It was unclear whether older applicants found it more difficult to match to the specialties of their choice, i.e. does age influence match? We ask in particular, does age affect the neurology match? Methods: In response to written request, CaRMS provided pre-pandemic age data for 2015-2019 inclusive, divided into group 1 (30 or younger) and group 2 (31-40 inclusive). Results: In 2019, 39 of the 69 group 1 and 6 of the 23 group 2 neurology applicants were matched into neurology (odds ratio (OR)=2.2|p=0.01). In contrast, urology (OR=6|p=0.001) had the worst odds and family medicine (OR=1.2|p=0.002) had the best odds for older applicants in 2019. Average OR (2015-2019) was 1.6 for neurology, 3.1 for urology, 1.3 for family medicine, and between 1.3 and 3.1 for nearly all other specialties. Conclusions: Older neurology applicants were less likely to match than younger peers while match probability was statistically significantly lower in nearly all specialties for older applicants.