Medical schools across the country hosted annual Match Day ceremonies on March 17, during which 16,559 medical school seniors learned where they are going to spend the next three to seven years for their residency training. At HMS, approximately 170 seniors matched to residency programs across the country, with the greatest number matching in internal medicine.
Family medicine program matches increased the most at HMS. This trend held true nationwide, with family medicine programs experiencing the strongest growth in the number of positions filled, according to the National Residency Matching Program (NRMP). Pediatrics, internal medicine, emergency medicine, anesthesiology and neurology also increased in popularity. The most competitive fields, according to the NRMP, were dermatology, orthopaedic surgery, otolaryngology, plastic surgery, radiation oncology, thoracic surgery and vascular surgery.
The 2011 match offered more than 23,000 first-year residency positions, and more than 95 percent of those were filled. Nationwide, 81 percent of those students matched to one of their top three choices.
The NRMP is a non-profit organization sponsored by several national medical societies in order to provide an orderly and fair way to match applicants to U.S. residency positions.
