According to the National Resident Matching Program (NRMP), this was the largest Match in history: 29,890 applicants participated - 1,153 more than last year and 4,500 more than participated five years ago. More than half the participants in this year’s Match were U.S. medical school seniors (15,638), 400 more than in 2008.
Conducted annually by the NRMP, the Match uses a computer algorithm designed to produce favorable results for applicants that align the preferences of applicants with the preferences of residency programs in order to fill the thousands of training positions available at U.S. teaching hospitals.
Here at home, the results of the Match are in: 32 OHSU School of Medicine graduates will remain at OHSU and eight others will remain in Oregon. Forty-four students will enter residency programs in other western states and the remaining 36 students will enter residency programs in Northeast, Midwest/Central and Southern states.
OHSU graduates continue to choose primary care residencies more frequently than their national counterparts. Forty-three percent of the class entered primary care residencies (medicine, family medicine and pediatrics), compared with a national average of 34.5 percent for those specialties.
One new trend – nationally and at OHSU – is the increasing number of couples. Altogether there were 788 couples in the national Match this year, an all-time high. Participants who enter the Match as a couple agree to have their rank order lists of preferred residency programs linked to each other to ensure that they match to programs within the same geographic area, for instance. This year, 706 of these couples both matched to their respective residency program preferences.
“The Match was a culmination of four years of hard work and determination combined with some luck,” said graduating OHSU senior Vincent Lew, who participated in a partner Match. “The Match process worked well for me, not only because I'm ecstatic about training in the Bay Area, but also because I couples-matched with my partner successfully.” Both will move to San Francisco.
For photos of Match Day at OHSU, check out the SoM Facebook Page at the url below.
