From October to February every year, thousands of medical students interview at residency training programs across the country, competing for a training spot in their chosen medical specialty.
By Abby Ward, MEd, C-TAGME
AU/UGA Medical Partnership | Office of Graduate Medical Education
Program Coordinator, Internal Medicine Residency Program
The NFL Draft Day is Friday, March 19. Of course, that’s not the actual NFL Draft Day, but that’s what it feels like for medical students across the nation. They’ve put in the work, the years of education, the blood, sweat, and tears – and on Friday they finally find out where they will be going to complete their residency training. It’s a big day because residency is a vital step in their journey to becoming a fully licensed physician.
Medical Student Match Day
From October to February every year, thousands of medical students interview at residency training programs across the country, competing for a training spot in their chosen medical specialty – internal medicine, neurology, dermatology, family medicine, etc. It’s like the NFL Combine for medical education – once invited to interview, they put on their best suits, give their best interview answers, and do their best to stand out from the crowd to earn a coveted training spot. All of the work done in the Combine, doing their best to stand out and earn that spot, comes down to Draft Day – or as we call it in the medical education community, Match Day.
At noon on Friday, March 19, medical students from across the country will all learn which residency training program they have matched with to complete their specialty training. Think of Match Day like the phone call football players receive when they’re drafted – the team is calling them to welcome them and let them know where they’ll be playing as a rookie in the NFL. Match Day is that phone call – or email in this case – letting medical students know where they will be training in residency.
But one difference from Draft Day is that Match Day is also the day the “teams” find out which “players” will be coming their way. Residency programs, like the Internal Medicine Residency Program here in Athens, rank the medical students they would like to recruit. On Match Day, they find out which of those students ranked them as the program they want to train with. Match Day is a surprise for students and programs alike.
Match Day Informs Medical Students Where They Will Be Training
Match Day is a celebrated event for the medical education community, but many people don’t know about it or what it means. It’s like a well-kept secret, a secret draft, but we’re letting you in on the special occasion. Medical students complete additional training, called residency, after they graduate from medical school. Match Day informs medical students where they will be training and what specialty they will be training in. Residency can last from 3-7 years depending on the specialty the medical student pursues.
Our internal medicine residency program at the Augusta University/University of Georgia Medical Partnership with St. Mary’s Hospital lasts for three years. During this time, our resident doctors are training with and learning from physicians in the hospital and in the Athens community. At the end of their three years of residency training, they may go into practice within the community or continue to specialize their training in another area, like cardiology, nephrology, or critical care.
Match Day is coming, and we’re all waiting to see where the medical students at the AU/UGA Medical Partnership will match and which 12 medical students we will welcome here in Athens to the AU/UGA Internal Medicine Residency Program at St. Mary’s. It’s an exciting time for our medical community and we hope you’ll celebrate with us.