To Match or Not to Match?

Today, fourth year medical students all across the country opened envelopes, placed phone calls, and checked their e-mail to see where they would be spending the next three to seven years of their lives.

It's Match Day.

Match Day has become the pinnacle of a medical student's education. During the fourth year, the academic load lightens as you once again put on your "applicant" hat and travel across the country to interview at different residency programs. The MS4 (fourth-year medical student) will rank their top residency programs while at the same time residency programs are ranking their top choices for newbie doctors. The preferences of all the applicants and all the residency programs are then entered into a giant computer. On Monday of Match Week, you find out if you placed into a program. On Thursday at noon, you find out where, traditionally at an elaborate ceremony in front of your entire class and extended family.

According to the National Resident Matching Program (NRMP) over 24,000 students were placed into residency training programs. However, close to 30,000 students sought residency positions through the NRMP this year--what happens to the other 6,000 doctors? They enter a process known as "the Scramble," a no-rules race to fill one of the few open residency positions left. And it all has to be done before they serve the punch and cut the cake at the Match Day ceremony. Some pinnacle.

As an international medical student, I will be at a slight disadvantage heading into the Match. I will have to study longer to keep my GPA up, score higher on the USMLE, and work harder to impress my clinical teachers during rotations.

Although...I can sleep better at night knowing that I'm attending the "Harvard of the Caribbean."

Here's a link to SGU's 2009 Match results. Make sure to check out the 2010 results, as many students will spend one year in General Medicine or Internal Medicine before moving on to a specialty like Diagnostic Radiology or Neurology. Look closely and you'll also notice that two students matched in my hometown of Milton, VT for Family Practice residencies and two others matched in Burlington, VT for Neurology and Pediatrics!

https://baysgu35.sgu.edu/ERD/2009/ResidPost.nsf/BYPGY?OpenView&RestrictToCategory=PGY1&Count=-1