The Envelope, Please

At precisely noon on Friday, March 20, fourth-year medical students at Emory’s School of Medicine participated in Match Day 2015, joining their peers across the US as they dashed across the room, ripped open envelopes, and simultaneously learned where they are headed next on their journeys to become physicians.

The students were among thousands receiving positions at US teaching hospitals through the National Residency Match Program (NRMP), which annually matches students with residency programs, where they will care for patients under the supervision of attending physicians.

“Finding out where you’ll spend your residency is a memorable day in the life of a medical student,” says J. William Eley, executive associate dean for medical education and student affairs. “The Emory School of Medicine Class of 2015 has achieved wonderful results in this year’s match. We are excited that they are going to outstanding medical centers to continue their training.”

Of the 137 Emory graduating seniors, 133 participated in a match program. Some of the most popular specialties chosen by Emory’s graduating seniors were internal medicine, pediatrics, and general surgery. Twenty-eight graduating students will spend all or part of their residencies in Emory’s Residency Training Programs, with others going to a variety of esteemed institutions including Harvard, UCSF, Northwestern, Cleveland Clinic, University of Washington, University of Pennsylvania, Mayo Clinic, Cornell, Columbia, Yale, Brown, Duke, Johns Hopkins, and Vanderbilt.

The now-computerized match process was established in 1952, at the request of medical students, to provide a fair and impartial transition to the graduate medical education experience. According to the NRMP, last year more than forty thousand applicants vied for some twenty-nine thousand residency positions at institutions across the country.