Are you...

• Considering a residency which requires preparatory internship training such as
  - Anesthesiology
  - Radiology
  - Ophthalmology
  - Dermatology
  - Physical Medicine 
  - Neurology
  - Radiation Oncology 
• Undecided about your residency or career choice?
• In need of broad-based clinical training before entering Military Service, Medical Research, Administrative or Preventive Medicine?

If so... A Transitional Year may be for you!

The Transitional Year is:

• A one year residency training program designed to facilitate the choice or preparation for a specific specialty or career by providing a well-balanced, clinical educational experience.
• Fully accredited by the Accreditation Council of Graduate Medical Education specifically as a preparatory program.
• There are 121 Transitional Year programs with over 1,100 positions offered throughout the country annually.
• Transitional Year Programs are located in both Community Hospitals and University Medical Centers, and are generally sponsored by at least 2 accredited categorical residency programs.

The Transitional Year offers several unique advantages:

• A broad-based curriculum which assures diverse training in multiple disciplines.
• Increased flexibility, allowing programs to provide a large number & variety of elective rotations.
• Well defined accreditation standards & review process specifically designed for preparatory residency training.
• Curriculum & standards which stress:
  - Education over service needs
  - Supervised autonomy and graduated responsibility
  - Strong peer interaction with residents from other disciplines
• In addition to being accredited as a preparatory year for specialty training, the TY may qualify as first year training toward board certification in Family Medicine and Internal Medicine.
• TY programs use the Electronic Residency Application Service (ERAS), simplifying the application process.

The Transitional Year may provide an important financial advantage for the specialty program you will enter.
A portion of Medicare's payments to hospitals sponsoring residency training (called DME) is based on each resident's "initial residency period". The initial residency period is defined as the minimum number of years of training required to be board-eligible in the specialty a resident first enters. Once established, the initial residency period does not change, even if the resident changes specialties. Hospitals are reimbursed a full DME payment for each resident in their initial residency period, but receive only half this amount for residents training beyond this period. Because Medicare recognizes the TY as a unique preparatory program, TY interns are assigned the initial residency period of the specialty they enter after the internship year. In contrast, because Medicare does not recognize Preliminary Medicine internships as distinct from their categorical Internal Medicine sponsors, these interns are assigned an initial residency period of 3 years, regardless of the specialty they subsequently enter. This is an important difference between TY and Preliminary Medicine internships, especially since most of the specialty residencies requiring preparatory training are 4-year programs.  This same difference also applies to Preliminary Surgery internships and Transitional Year training.

 

For more information, please refer to the brochure, "Medicare Payments for Graduate Medical Education", available through your Student Affairs office or through the Association of American Medical Colleges (202-828-0416), or contact Ivy Baer (202-828-0490 or on-line at: ibaer@aamc.org.

How can you learn more about the Transitional Year, or about specific TY programs?

See the "Resources" section of this CTYPD website for a listing of all ACGME-accredited TY residency programs.  Those programs that are members of the Council of Transitional Year Program Directors are highlighted and a link to the website for these programs has been provided.

You can also call AHME Headquarters to reach the Chair of the Council of Transitional Year Program Directors (CTYPD) at 724-864-7321 or to learn more about TY Residency Programs in your area.