VA NM isn't the same as VA AZ. And on that note, a current Hyer fellow is a grad from VA NM and he's a force to be reckon with.
Yeah the fellowships will have up and down years, just like residencies. It's dynamic.
Some years, they match rockstars.
Other years, they get the best they can... or go unfilled. It happens to even the best training spots.
Fellowships are adding spots too, OFAC aka Hyer included (1/yr when he did it and for many years, to two recently, and now to 3/yr)... and why wouldn't they want more 60k/yr clinic/research docs? That will affect their ease or difficulty to get... and it also takes more cases from residents at associated programs.
The good Acfas fellowships have always and will tend to pick from top quarter or third or at least half of residents... aka folks who already got pretty good surgery training in residency if they applied themselves. That has been the norm for years... basically since the fellowship fad started. As there are more programs and spots, there will be some YoY variance, though. I don't think there will ever be years where you see bottom half residency grads getting the top 10-20 Acfas fellowship spots.
...but yeah, I agree VA-Albuquerque is a pretty good program... top half or third among DPM residencies now. Their new director is very good... huge upgrade, they are let outside the VA to do some decent cases with ABQ attendings, and they still send some pgy3s to train and get diversity at Kaiser.
We also have to remember fellowship's
optional. It always was - and still is - true that a lot of top podiatry residency grads don't even consider fellowship - yet many of those 3-year trained (and even some 2yr) are currently working as fellowship
directors, lol. That desire of any given year's top grads, the adding of more spots at good fellowships, and many other things (retire/closing/opening of fellowships) will continue to change the fellowship applicant pools.
The cpme and non accredited podiatry Fellowships - and even many of the lower level Acfas ones - are kinda all over the board in terms of quality and applicant standards. I think that highly variable "fellowship trained" product is why residency and board qual/cert will continue to be a main things - esp for jobs that get huge app pools. It's almost like the PPMR POR PSR-12 PSR-24 and preceptorship podiatry days when people had to cobble together their training. It's as if we had nearly standardized 3yr surgical (we never truly did... too many inadequate programs), and now we quickly revert to post-grad DPM training irregularity again.