Medical Students Find Out Their Futures on Match Day

More than 150 University of Cincinnati (UC) College of Medicine students found out their residency match Friday, March 15, surrounded by friends, family and a room of their cheering fellow students.

The most popular residency specialty was internal medicine, followed by emergency medicine.

More than 25 percent of students will be staying in the Greater Cincinnati area to complete their residency: 19 students at University of Cincinnati Medical Center, seven at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center and the rest at local hospitals throughout the Tristate.


Student Natalie Geier will be going into radiation oncology and matched at UC Medical Center.

"I'm really, really happy," she says. "It's been a long four years and it's nice this day has finally come. I couldn't be happier."

An annual rite of passage at medical schools across the nation, Match Day is when fourth-year students learn where they are "matched” for their residency training. Student names are called, lottery-style, during the event, and they open their envelope hoping to see their top choice of hospital and specialty.

 

This year, senior associate dean for education Andrew Filak, MD, pulled the first envelope for the class, with Aurora Bennett, MD, associate dean of student affairs, and Bruce Giffin, PhD, pulling the rest of the envelopes from the Match Day Box.

Residency "matches" are determined by rankings from both student applicants and programs. After applying and interviewing with residency programs, students rank the programs by their order of preference, weighing factors of program quality, geographic region and family or personal factors into their list.

 
The National Resident Matching Program (NRMP) does the actual matching, linking the program preferences of students with those of residency program directors. The NRMP is a private, not-for-profit corporation established in 1952 to provide a uniform date of appointment to positions in graduate medical education.

The NRMP reports that total Match registrants topped 40,000 for 2013, including 1,000 more U.S. allopathic seniors, in the largest Main Residency Match in NRMP history. The number of positions rose by almost 2,400 to an all-time high of 29,171.

Nationwide, primary care was the top speciality. The NRMP further reports that 78.8 percent of U.S. seniors and 78.8 percent of independent applicants who matched obtained one of their top three choice programs.

Medical students found out their residency match on Friday, March 15.

Medical students found out their residency match on Friday, March 15.

Students find out their residency match on the 2013 Match Day, held Friday, March 15.

Students find out their residency match on the 2013 Match Day, held Friday, March 15.

Students find out their residency match on the 2013 Match Day, held Friday, March 15.

Students find out their residency match on the 2013 Match Day, held Friday, March 15.

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