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On March 15, Meharry Medical College’s Class of 2024 medical students participated in Match Day: a heavily anticipated, nationwide event where students discover their futures as physicians. Match Day marks the moment in which the National Resident Matching Program (NRMP) reveals the location and focus of medical students’ post-graduate residencies. For Meharry, Match Day is a dramatic cause for celebration, highlighting the achievements and adversity overcome by each student as they learn their future surrounded by family, professors, and peers.
At the event, classmates simultaneously opened envelopes revealing the institutions that selected them.
As part of the National Resident Matching Program (NRMP), each year medical school students submit their top three choices for residency programs to the NRMP, a nonprofit organization that facilitates the process of matching the preferences of applicants to available U.S. residency positions. The students submitted applications to the NRMP to find a position at a U.S. teaching hospital where they will undertake a period of specialized training which can last from three to seven years. The NRMP uses a computerized mathematical algorithm, designed to produce a best result by aligning 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.
Meharry students and their friends and families joined thousands of other medical students across the country for the nationwide event known as ‘Match Day.’ This is when students learn where they will be trained as medical residents and truly learn how to be doctors, practicing real medicine in real-time, real-life situations for years. The day is an exciting and emotional one for the students and their families, some of whom travel vast distances to be there with them on this very special day. Each student is given time to speak and introduce their loved ones, and share their experience and plans for the future, as they reveal their ‘match’ to colleagues and supporters.
Meharry has a proud reputation of exceeding the national averages for students matched to primary care fields of internal medicine and pediatrics. According to a recent study by the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC), the United States is expected to face a shortage of up to 35,600 primary care physicians over the next decade. Meharry is on the frontlines to reverse this shortfall.
“Class of 2024, you did it,” posted the institution on X (formerly known as twitter). “You have received jobs at institutions across the country including Mayo, Harvard, John Hopkins, Yale, Meharry and more. Your class had a 95% match rate, with 47% going into primary care. Congratulations, you are a history fact in the making!”
The MMC students also matched into highly desirable specialty fields including radiation oncology, orthopedic surgery, anesthesiology, emergency medicine, neurology, radiology and pathology.
“Meharry students are competitive nationwide because of our rigorous academics combined with our nurturing environment that allows students to grow and develop as scholars, medical professionals and servant leaders,” said a School of Medicine official.
The 2018 Main Residency Match is the largest in NRMP history. A record-high 37,103 applicants submitted program choices for 33,167 positions, the most ever offered in the Match. The number of available first-year (PGY-1) positions rose to 30,232, an increase of 1,383 over 2017. The number of Match registrants was the highest ever at 43,909.
The NRMP is a private, non-profit organization established in 1952 at the request of medical students to provide an orderly and fair mechanism for matching the preferences of applicants for U.S. residency positions with the preferences of residency program directors. In addition to the annual Main Residency Match for almost 44,000 registrants, the NRMP conducts Fellowship Matches for more than 60 subspecialties through its Specialties Matching Service (SMS).
