Dear Fellow-Seekers,

I'm applying to internal med residencies, and I'm mystified by the terms Preliminary / Categorical / Categorical with MPH. Please let me know;
(1) What's the difference? Does Prelim mean you're hired for only the 1st year and then you're off somewhere else (if you can get into PGY2 somewhere else?)?
(2) What does "Categorical Mean? Aren't they all different categories anyway?
(3) What is "Categorical with MPH"

Preliminary/Categorical/Categ with MPH means what?

Hi. Im applying for residency in General surgery and what i believe Prelim. is what u have explained. Its just 1 year post before you start residency in other subspecialties like, Plastic surgery, urology, radiology etc. bec these programmes need a prelim. year before you can start training in their programmes. For surgery its easier to get prelim. than categorical but then ur stuck with no job after a year most of the times. Not sure how things are in medicine.

Categorical, I believe, is full run through training programme, for surgery 5-7 years and for medicine 3 years etc.

All I can tell abt MPH is it probably stands for Masters in Public Health but what Cat. with MPH mean, I have no clue since I didn't come across this term while applying for residency prog. myself.

Anyway, Good Luck
edited by niq on 9/15/2009
edited by niq on 9/15/2009