Report Released: 2016 Appointment Year Largest Yet for NRMP Fellowship Matches

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National Resident Matching Program

Mar 07, 2016, 19:00 ET


Washington, DC (PRWEB) March 07, 2016 -- The National Resident Matching Program® (NRMP®) announces the release of “Results and Data Specialties Matching Service, 2016 Appointment Year”, an annual report of physician Fellowship Matches conducted by the NRMP through its Specialties Matching Service® (SMS®). Data are provided for Matches conducted in 2015 and early 2016 for fellowship appointments beginning July 2016. Five-year trend data by specialty, a state-by-state breakdown of participating programs, and match rates by applicant type are highlighted.

The 2016 appointment year was the largest in the history of the SMS, with 9,893 applicants vying for 9,320 fellowship positions offered by 4,036 programs across 61 specialties. “We are pleased with the continued success of the Specialties Matching Service,” said NRMP President and CEO Mona M. Signer. “We believe the data presented in the Results and Data report illuminate trends in the physician workforce that support the strategic planning of participating specialties and members of the graduate medical education community.”

Five new specialties joined the SMS for 2015, including Headache Medicine, Hospice and Palliative Medicine, Obstetric Anesthesiology, Spinal Cord Injury Medicine, and Vascular Neurology. Other highlights:

Program Highlights

  • Of the 9,320 positions offered through the SMS, 8,041 (86.3 percent) were filled
  • Of the 4,036 participating programs, 3,150 (78.0 percent) filled all positions
  • Of the 61 participating subspecialties, 32 filled 90 percent or more of the positions offered and 18 filled less than 75 percent of the positions offered

Applicant Highlights

  • The number of registered applicants totaled 10,498, an increase of 462 or 4.6 percent
  • 8,041 (81.3%) of the 9,893 applicants who submitted a rank ordered list of programs obtained positions, the highest match rate on record for the SMS
  • The number of registered non-U.S. citizen graduates of international medical schools (IMGs) declined for the fourth year in a row, down almost 500 applicants since 2012
  • The number of registered U.S. citizen IMGs totaled 1,462 an increase of 169 or 13.1 percent

U.S. Allopathic Graduate Highlights

  • U.S. allopathic graduates matched at a rate of 89.4 percent, the highest on record for the SMS
  • Between 2012 and 2016, the number of U.S. allopathic graduates who submitted a rank ordered list of programs rose by 31.5 percent
  • Eight specialties, all in Obstetrics/Gynecology and Surgery, filled 75 percent or more of their positions with U.S. allopathic medical school graduates, and 29 specialties filled less than 50 percent of their positions with U.S. allopathic graduates

View full Match report and infographic

The NRMP Match
The Match uses a computerized mathematical algorithm to align the preferences of applicants with the preferences of program directors in order to fill training positions available at U.S. teaching hospitals. Research on the NRMP algorithm was a basis for awarding The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel in 2012.

About NRMP
The National Resident Matching Program® (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 more than 40,000 applicants, the NRMP conducts Fellowship Matches for more than 60 subspecialties through its Specialties Matching Service® (SMS®).

Diane Greenhalgh, National Resident Matching Program, http://www.nrmp.org/latest-news/press/, +1 202-499-5987, [email protected]