Hi Maggie,

When I was hired, I inherited a surgery prelim who my program accepted as a PGY-2. He must have had 6 orthopaedic surgery rotations in his preliminary year to meet the ABOS requirements. Throughout the rest of his residency, he completed non-orthopaedic rotations in each year that he missed as a prelim – anesthesia as a PGY2, trauma surgery as a PGY3, neurosurgery as a PGY4. This was all discussed and approved by the ABOS as an appropriate make-up curriculum.

Our other surgery prelim joined us in January of their prelim year. Coming in they had a good number of rotations that met the ABOS requirements for non-orthopaedic rotations, as well as several orthopaedic rotations their prelim curriculum had made possible for them. We were able to adjust the latter part of the year to fill the gaps and they started their PGY2 year on schedule.

I would suggest getting a copy of their current prelim curriculum to see what matches up with ABOS requirements, discuss as soon as possible with Sonya at ABOS for what they will accept, and negotiate a make-up schedule if there are gaps.

Good luck!

Laurie