Record Number of Applicants Matched to Residency Programs

Matched Dad: University of Maryland medical student Joshua Winer finds out where he will spend his residency on Match Day while holding his baby daughter.

Match Day, the most important rite of passage for medical school senior students, ushered in a few surprises this year. For the first time in the National Resident Matching Program's (NRMP) 52-year history, more than 20,000 matches were made to first- and second-year residency positions. In addition, the 2004 Match boasted the highest number of matched couples to date, at 641.

"I thought the Match was a very efficient process, but that didn't stop it from being nerve racking!" said Bri Melander, a medical student at Washington University in St. Louis School of Medicine. Despite her initial anxiety, Melander matched with her top choice, New York University School of Medicine's OB-GYN program.

Melander believes that the Match is a more effective system than one that relies upon one-on-one negotiations between students and institutions. "It may seem to people that the Match's end result is out of their hands, since a comp- uter is doing the final match for them," she said. "But I think that the process puts more of the choice in the hands of students, and it's certainly more fair than anything that came before it."

This year's match rate for U.S. medical school students seeking first-year residency positions was 92.9 percent, falling within the range of the past two decades' rate of 92 to 94 percent. More than three-fourths of all 2004 applicants, including international medical school graduates and other non-U.S. medical school seniors, were matched to a residency position.

This year's participating couples, defined by the NRMP as any two applicants enrolling in the program as partners, matched at 93.9 percent. Out of the 641 participating couples, 584 had both partners matched to their residency program preferences.

As in previous years, more than 80 percent of all matched applicants obtained one of their top three residency program choices. Matched U.S. medical school seniors enjoyed a very high success rate, as more than 85 percent of them were paired with one of their top three program choices. Similarly, more than 83 percent of all other groups of matched applicants were paired with one of their top three choices.

In an effort to serve applicants and residency programs better, this year the NRMP introduced a vacant positions list online for unmatched residents. This timesaving device, which allowed those students to search for potential residency slots, allowed programs to delete positions from the Web site as they were filled, so applicants would not continue to call programs after positions were no longer available.

Supporting the Match

Despite the current legal challenge, the program still has the support of many medical students, residents and others in the medical profession. Jane Broecker, M.D., an assistant professor of OB-GYN at Ohio University College of Osteopathic Medicine and chair of the AAMC's Or-ganization of Resident Representatives recalls her match at the University of Cincinnati's (UC) OB-GYN program six years ago. Unlike the majority of residents, Dr. Broecker didn't match with one of her top three choices. UC happened to be her fourth choice.

"I think the Match worked beautifully because it matched me up at a place where I belonged," Dr. Broecker said.

Her top three choices were based on geographic location, not so much on her preference for the individual programs.

"I was trying to be near my boyfriend, who was in North Carolina," she said. "My fourth choice was actually my first one in terms of what felt like the right program for me."

In Dr. Broecker's opinion, her experience reflects how the process "really maximizes the true match between the applicant and the program."

-Suria Santana

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