VCU medical students match to residency sites across the U.S.

By Erin Lucero
Office of Development, School of Medicine

RICHMOND, Va. – Last month, thousands of medical students around the country learned where they will spend the next several years of their medical training. The day brought good news to the 2001 class of Virginia Commonwealth University’s School of Medicine.

On March 22 – National Match Day – students received the long-anticipated envelope that held the name of the residency program that was their perfect match. Of the 156 VCU students who participated in this year’s match, 84 percent matched to one of their top three residency sites, and 60 percent matched to their first choice.

"It’s a successful day for our students," said H.H. Newsome Jr., M.D., dean of the School of Medicine. "Because they are well-known nationally for their clinical maturity and skills, they match better than the national average."

After earning their medical degrees in May, VCU students will have a little more than a month until they report for duty at hospitals across the country, in 31 different states and the District of Columbia. This year, students matched to residency positions at such well-known hospitals as Duke University Medical Center, in Durham, N.C., Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Cedars-Sinai

Health System in Los Angeles, Yale-New Haven Hospital in New Haven, Conn., Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City and the University of Michigan Health System in Ann Arbor.

VCU’s medical students will pursue a variety of career directions. Forty-nine percent have chosen primary care, while others will study fields including surgery, psychiatry, anesthesiology, emergency medicine, otolaryngology, neurology and radiology.

National statistics show that 46 percent of United States medical school seniors matched to a position in one of the generalist disciplines, which include internal medicine, family practice, pediatrics and obstetrics and gynecology. Virginia’s primary care statistics do not include obstetrics residencies.

On the receiving end of the match, VCU’s Medical College of Virginia Hospitals learned which medical students matched to its 135 residency positions. Students from 60 medical schools across the country will complete their medical training at MCV Hospitals. The residents hail from medical schools including Bowman Gray, Georgetown, Duke, Boston, Texas A&M and Indiana universities as well as the University of Virginia, University of Rochester, University of Chicago, University of Kentucky and the Medical College of Georgia.

National Match Day is the culmination of months of planning on the part of both students and hospitals. In December and January, medical students interview at residency sites around the country. By the end of February, students rank their choices in order of preference, and the hospitals do the same with their top candidates. These preferences are matched each year by a computer in Washington, D.C., and the results are delivered to students at noon on the fourth Thursday of March.

Begun more than 40 years ago, the National Resident Matching Program this year offered 20,642 first-year residency positions for which 23,981 individuals competed.

The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching classifies VCU as a Carnegie Research-Extensive university. Each year, VCU faculty members attract about $120 million in sponsored research funding. Programs in VCU’s School of Medicine and MCV Hospitals have been repeatedly ranked among the best in the nation.