For the seventh year in a row, the number of medical residents grew, up by about 4,000 in 2024-25, for a total of 163,189 residents, according to the AAMC’s annual Report on Residents.
The AAMC collects data from numerous sources, including surveys, student records, resident and faculty rosters, medical organizations, and licensing bodies, to compile the report. The data, which cover characteristics of each cohort from the first year of medical school to post-residency, is meant to inform residency applicants, residency program directors, residency specialty organizations, and researchers about changes over time.
While changes are often gradual, the report authors note, tracking them over time can reveal trends. For example, women have slowly increased their representation in the resident workforce for several years, but they made up the majority of residents for the first time in the 2024-25 academic year.
Below, AAMCNews shares 10 facts from the report, which is also available in full.
Residency trends
- Most Medical School Graduation Questionnaire respondents change their choice of specialty during medical school, with just 29.4% in 2025 indicating the same specialty preference at graduation as at the start of medical school. The specialties with the highest continuity were orthopaedic surgery (54.1%), neurological surgery (47.5%), and pediatrics (41.9%).
- The percentage of active residents who were international medical school graduates rose to 24.2%, up from 23.4% in 2023-24.
- The percentage of active MD residents who were non-U.S. citizens stayed roughly the same in 2024-25 as in 2023-24, at 16.9%. This was a decline from 2022-23, when 19.2% of active MD residents were non-U.S. citizens.
- In 2024-25, MD-PhD residents made up 3.3% of trainees in specialties with MD-PhD residents. Internal medicine had the largest number of MD-PhD residents: 455.
- The AAMC added a new race/ethnicity category for 2024-25: Middle Eastern or North African. Overall, 51.6% of active residents in 2024-25 identified as white, 31.0% identified as Asian, 10.4% as Hispanic or Latino, 8.0% as Black or African American, 0.9% as Middle Eastern or North African, 0.6% as American Indian or Alaska Native, and 0.2% as Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander. These include people who identified as more than one race or ethnicity. Some active residents have not had the opportunity to respond to the updated categories, meaning those who identify as Middle Eastern or North African may be underrepresented.
- Women accounted for 50.2% of residents and fellows in 2024-25, now constituting a majority of residents for the first time.
- Among the larger specialties, women make up the majority of residents in family medicine (56.3%), obstetrics and gynecology (88.8%), pediatrics (75.8%), and psychiatry (53.9%), while men hold the majority in anesthesiology (61.8%), emergency medicine (56.0%), internal medicine (53.4%), neurological surgery (72.9%), and orthopaedic surgery (76.3%).
- Residents who graduated from a college of osteopathic medicine (DO graduates) made up about 18.5% of all residents in 2024-25, totaling 30,163.
- Of those who completed residency training from 2015 through 2024, 55.7% are practicing in the state where they did their residency training, down from 58.6% among those who did their training from 2014 to 2023. Retention rates ranged from 33.6% in the District of Columbia to 75.7% in California.
- Of physicians who completed residency from 2015 through 2024, 20.9% currently hold a full-time faculty appointment at a U.S. MD-granting school.
