OSR-Electronic Residency Application Service Advisory Committee (ERAS)
Update
February 2008
Scramble (or Rematch)
ERAS is releasing a special Scramble edition of the Applicant Document
Tracking System (ADTS) in time for this year's Scramble. ADTS Lite will
begin on 12 noon, Tuesday, March 18th. Normal ADTS returns on Wednesday,
March 19. ADTS Lite will only display Scramble activity on Tuesday, when
peak Scramble activity occurs. On Wednesday, normal ADTS returns and applicants
will be able to see all application activity, pre- and post-Scramble.
It will be easier for applicants participating in the Scramble to apply
(and reapply) to residency programs and track their applications. Applicants
will be able to reapply to a maximum of 15 programs as well as apply to
30 new programs (the applicant will need to compare their list with the
unfilled list). ADTS Lite will automatically change the status of the
applicant to that of a Scramble applicant and applicants will only be
able to see the status of applications transmitted during the Scramble.
The standard ADTS application will be disabled during the Scramble. ERAS
server capacity has been increased to accommodate the increased utilization
anticipated with this new feature.
ERAS Usage
There continues to be an overall satisfaction with the ERAS service from
all of its stakeholder groups, even as the usage of ERAS continues to
grow with the addition of new specialties and fellowships as well as the
increased medical student applicant pool. New this year are some updates
to the Scramble 2008 portion of ERAS which will make it easier for students
to coordinate their scramble strategy in one location and hopefully reduce
the amount of chaos that results from phone calls and faxes to individual
programs.
Confidential Information
An issue was raised regarding the privacy and acceptable use of confidential
applicant information obtained through ERAS. There were several reports
made regarding unacceptable use of confidential information by residency
programs including the use of contact information and letters of recommendation
and it was decided that ERAS should develop an acceptable use policy for
its participants and establish appropriate consequences for violators.
ERAS Redesign
Looking forward, ERAS is in the early stages of planning a complete re-write
of its application in an effort to update the technology and convert the
entire ERAS service to a web-based application. Currently only the applicant
portion of the service is web-based. A focus group of representative stakeholders
is currently being recruited which will help guide this process which
is expected to take several years. New features to be incorporated in
the re-engineered ERAS application include electronic LORs.
MYERAS 2009
Beginning with ERAS 2009, letters of recommendation (LORs) will be uncoupled
from the program selection process. The Dean's Office Workstation (DWS)
can start uploading LORs as soon as the student is registered in ERAS
Careers in Medicine
CiM and ERAS have completed a study of the selection criteria used by
program directors in selecting residents. All residency and fellowship
programs participating in the 2007 ERAS were invited to participate in
a survey. Look for the findings of the survey on the CiM specialty pages
as well as on the ERAS and CiM websites.
Bjorn Peterson
OSR ERAS Liaison
Loma Linda University School of Medicine
bkpeterson@llu.edu
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