Top 10 specialties with the most medical residency positions

Among the factors that can contribute to medical specialty choice is the magnitude of opportunity. This unique view of program data reveal which specialties offer the greatest number of first-year residency positions. 

To get you started within a specialty, each link takes you to a list of the 10 programs offering the most first-year positions for that specialty.  

Rankings are based on FREIDA™ data updated from Jan. 1–Dec. 31, 2024. FREIDA™, the AMA Residency & Fellowship Database®, allows medical students to search for a residency or fellowship from more than 13,000 programs—all accredited by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education.

In 2024, FREIDA users tallied nearly 2 million views of residency programs. With this collection, we draw from more than 45,000 first-year residency positions to share the 10 specialties that offer the most first-year medical residency positions. 

Most first-year medical residency positions of 2024

1.  Internal medicine –13,428 first-year residency positions 

2.  Family medicine – 5,760 first-year residency positions

3.  Pediatrics – 3,444 first-year residency positions

4.  Surgery-general – 3,190 first-year residency positions

5. Emergency medicine – 3,185 first-year residency positions

6.  Psychiatry – 2,472 first-year residency positions

7.  Transitional year – 2,231 first-year residency positions

8.  Anesthesiology – 2,039 first-year residency positions

9.  Obstetrics and gynecology – 1,622 first-year residency positions

10. Radiology-diagnostic – 1,262 first-year residency positions