April 2012
This Month's News
Scramble out, SOAP in: Improving the post-Match process
Match results: Highest match rate for U.S. seniors in 30 years
Working to ensure more accurate data on medical student mistreatment
Register now for Section on Medical Schools meeting in June
Top Stories
Match results: Highest match rate for U.S. seniors in 30 years
More than 95 percent of U.S. medical school seniors—the highest rate in 30 years—matched to residency positions in the 2012 Match, according to data from the National Resident Matching Program (NRMP). A few noteworthy data points:
- The number of applicants rose by 642 to 38,377
- The number of available positions was 26,772
- Internal medicine, anesthesiology, and emergency medicine saw the largest increases in number of positions in 2012
- The number of family medicine positions increased only slightly (1.1 percent) following significant increases over the last two years
- Fewer than half (48.2 percent) of U.S. grads matched into family medicine, versus percentages in the high 90s for such highly competitive fields as dermatology, orthopaedic surgery, otolaryngology, plastic surgery, radiation oncology, thoracic surgery, and vascular surgery.
As in years past, the Match was the subject of significant media coverage, including American Medical News. One article on CNN.com, "Why your waiter has an M.D.," underscored the bottleneck in graduate medical education, with the growth in medical school enrollments not matched by an increase in residency program slots.
The Gainesville Sun noted the "heavy cost" to Florida inherent in the Match, with only 23 percent of the state's medical school graduates staying in Florida for their residencies—the lowest percentage since 2008. (Florida is 43rd in the number of medical residencies per capita, according to the AAMC.) In Louisiana, it was a tale of two schools. Of the 171 graduating seniors at LSU Medical School, 108 will stay in Louisiana; at Tulane Medical School, only 35 of 177 are staying in the state.
Meanwhile, Meharry Medical College highlighted the higher-than-average percentage of its graduates who matched into primary care fields. And a YouTube video from the University of Cincinnati takes a humorous look at where its students matched, and their med school mentors.
