U-M medical students recently gathered to hear what hospital uniform they’ll get to wear in the next few years, a major milestone in their medical training.
At the annual Medical School Match Day celebration, held at an Ann Arbor hotel, students received plain, white envelopes that contained their fates for the next three to seven years — inside, a single slip of paper stating where they will do their residencies.
This year 158 U-M students participated in the match. Similar to previous years, 33 percent will do their residencies and/or first years in Michigan, a plus for the state as it addresses a predicted physician shortage. The rest will be scattered across the country. Other top states for placement were Massachusetts, California, Illinois and Washington.
Twenty-three percent of the students are doing residencies at University Hospital. About 38 percent will be doing primary care residencies in specialities like family and internal medicine, obstetrics and gynecology and pediatrics.
Although results of the nationwide matching process were posted online at 1 p.m. — so that any graduating medical student in the country could find out their residency match on their own — it is a U-M tradition that the students find out as a group and share the good news with fellow students, faculty and friends.
“It is one of the most important and exciting days for our current students, second only to graduation,” says Associate Dean of Student Affairs Dr. Elizabeth Petty. “Match Day is an important part of their professional journey.”
Petty says that all U-M students seeking residency found positions, the majority through the match. The national match rate usually hovers around 93 percent, but similar to previous years, U-M’s rate is much higher; this year it was close to 99 percent.
Students enjoyed a lunch together with faculty and alumni, highlighted by a champagne toast from Dr. James Woolliscroft, dean of the Medical School and Lyle C. Roll Professor of Medicine.
“There were a lot of great programs out there,” says student Marina Vivero of New York, who will study pathology at the Brigham & Women’s Hospital in Boston. “Most of us are happy with our matches. I’m very happy and relieved to go to Brigham.”
Student Nyia Noel was excited to be matched at The Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania for Obstetrics & Gynecology.
“I feel wonderful and blessed,” says Noel, who is from Washington, D.C. “It’s been a long time coming, and it’s amazing how far we’ve come.”
The match, conducted annually by the National Resident Matching Program, is the primary system for aligning applicant preferences with those of residency programs at U.S. teaching hospitals.
According to the NRMP, this was the largest Match in history: 30,543 applicants participated — 655 more than last year and 3,800 more than in 2006.
During the third year, medical students select the residency programs in which they desire to participate; interviews take place in the fourth year. Then, based on factors that include interview results, student preferences and available openings, an impartial match is made through the national system.
Slightly more than 93 percent of U.S. medical school seniors matched to a first-year residency position this year; 82 percent of those students matched to one of their top three choices.
