The following is a summary of “Several Medical Schools in the United States Offer Three-Year MD Degrees to Students Ready to Commit to the Specialty” from the November issue of Annals of Emergency Medicine. Visit www.annemergmed.com to read the complete article.

A handful of United States medical schools have begun to offer an accelerated three-year path into emergency medicine residency, eliminating the fourth year of medical school entirely.

The number of medical schools offering a shortened route through education has skyrocketed in recent years, up from fewer than 10 in 2013 to roughly 150 now, across a variety of specialties. But while aspirants interested in specialties like primary care or family medicine can find a shortened path at nearly any of those 150 schools, so far only four offer an accelerated program for students pursuing emergency medicine. Those are New York University’s Langone Medical School in New York City, which began taking students in 2013; Penn State College of Medicine in Hershey (2017); Renaissance School of Medicine at Stony Brook University in Stony Brook, New York (2018); and Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston (2019).

Benefits of these programs include reduced tuition costs, reduced living expenses, a faster route to earned income, increased opportunity to build relationships, and a residency match that is all but guaranteed. What’s more, if students choose to switch out of the three-year path, they aren’t penalized beyond having to pay for their additional year of schooling—except for those at New York University, where tuition is free for all. “There is no significant disadvantage in trying it out,” says Latha Chandran, MD, Stony Brook’s vice dean for academic and faculty affairs, who designed Renaissance’s three-year program. “If you feel that you made the wrong choice, you have lost nothing. You can easily slide to our regular four-year schedule and go for whatever specialty you want to go for.”

Ms. Kelly is a special contributor to Annals “News & Perspective.”