One week ago today, the annual rite of passage for graduating medical students across the country took place — Match Day.
For those of you unfamiliar with Match Day, here’s a brief explainer.
Fourth-year students at every medical school in the U.S. and Canada have been – for the past year or more – researching, interviewing with and visiting residency programs where they could further their education into a specialized field. Essentially, taking the broad medicine training they received in school and focusing it all into a specialty or subspecialty like dermatology, surgery, orthopaedics, pediatrics, etc. During this process, the residency programs are also evaluating the students to see if they would be a good “match” for them.
The students create a rank order of their preferred residencies, and the residency programs do the same. A computer in Washington, D.C., takes the reins from there. It generates a list based on the two rankings lists of where each graduating medical student (and in some instances couples, which can be factored in) will go to further their training for the next three or more years. That list is kept confidential to the students until the third Friday of March – Match Day.
One of our former students said it best when he called Match Day a combination of the “NFL draft and the Academy Awards for nerds.”
The UMMC School of Medicine has held our Match Day ceremony in Thalia Mara Hall for many years, where each graduating student in attendance walks up to the microphone on the stage, opens an envelope that lists the residency they matched into and reads it aloud to the audience of family and friends. It’s exciting and one of my favorite events!
This year, nearly 99% of our eligible students matched into a program, well above the 93.5% national average. This isn’t new for us; we typically outperform the national match percentage. And to keep up this high-performing status as our medical school enrollment and total number of matches have grown is outstanding, and a boon for our state. Going back to 2004, we had 89 students match (which was a 98.9% match rate). This year, that total number is 155!
This year, the number of our graduates who matched into primary care (as defined by the Association of American Medical Colleges) is 90. And about 10% of all our matches are Rural Physicians Scholarship Program students (special thanks to the Mississippi Legislature for supporting this program since 2007) who have committed to practice in a rural area following the completion of their training. This is all great news for Mississippians who live in areas that still struggle with access to medical care. Help is on the way.
Our state still ranks last nationally in physicians per capita, but data like these are encouraging steps in a positive direction. While we can’t do it alone, we are certainly doing our part. Each year, during my Match Day ceremony address, I say these words to those students who matched out of state: “Come back. We need you. Mississippi needs you.”
Our students had a successful Match Day, as did our own residency programs.
We have 69 residency and fellowship programs, and this year they will welcome 191 new, incoming residents and fellows – mostly starting on July 1 – filling nearly every available slot. More than a third of these new residents will carry with them credentials from the UMMC School of Medicine. Sixty-six new residents will have been taught here, which is a record high for matches from UMMC to UMMC. This is very encouraging.
This summer, when the residencies begin, it won’t take a detective to be able to see those who are new to our hospital and those who are UMMC graduates. We’ll have new residents coming from all over — as far away as Dubai, globally, and California, domestically – who will likely need a little help in finding the cafeteria, things to do in the area (in the off chance they have free time when they aren’t sleeping or studying) or where they go to get the cheapest gas. If you have the opportunity, help them out. We want to put a good impression of Mississippi into their minds so that they’ll be more inclined to stay here following their residencies. We will have trained them. It would be great if they could use that training to treat Mississippians.
In addition to incoming medicine residents, we will also soon welcome new residents in other programs. UMMC will be training the following residents: 10 in dentistry, seven in psychology, three in physical therapy, two in prosthetics and orthotics and eight in pharmacy practice. And because we are a comprehensive academic medical center, there will be instances where these residents will have many opportunities to train alongside professionals in medicine and other disciplines. This interprofessional learning is helpful in replicating real-life work experiences. We have been increasing opportunities for this type of engagement, and the responses have been positive.
In the full spectrum, and many years, of a clinician’s health science education, there are few things more pivotal than residency placement. It’s an anxiety-inducing process, but the reward can be exhilarating and set a budding practitioner up for a lengthy career of successful service. These post-school-training professionals will one day be health care leaders in this state and beyond. I look forward to welcoming all these new colleagues and having them join us in our work on building A Healthier Mississippi.
Fourth-year students at every medical school in the U.S. and Canada have been – for the past year or more – researching, interviewing with and visiting residency programs where they could further their education into a specialized field. Essentially, taking the broad medicine training they received in school and focusing it all into a specialty or subspecialty like dermatology, surgery, orthopaedics, pediatrics, etc. During this process, the residency programs are also evaluating the students to see if they would be a good “match” for them. 