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On Friday, March 16, at noon, graduating medical students will tear open their National Residency Match envelopes simultaneously to reveal where they will spend the next three to seven years as medical residents. |
After at least four years of undergraduate study and another four years of medical school , it will all come down to this for the School of Medicine Class of 2018 on Match Day: the envelope, please.
On Friday, March 16, at noon, graduating medical students will tear open their National Residency Match envelopes simultaneously to reveal where they will spend the next three to seven years as medical residents. UMass Medical School marks the importance of the event with a schoolwide celebration for family, friends, faculty and fellow students.
Attendees are asked to gather Friday in the new medical school lobby and Faculty Conference Room beginning at 11:30 a.m. The 2018 Main Residency Match is expected to be the largest in history, exceeding the 43,000 applicants who registered for it last year, according to the National Resident Matching Program. NRMP administers the matches, which are made through a complex algorithm that takes into account the preferences of both students and residency programs, following the months-long application process. While Match Day logistics and traditions vary from school to school, the NRMP requires envelopes containing the matches not be opened by students before noon on the third Friday of March.
In a longstanding UMMS tradition, each matching student will place a dollar in a basket when they receive their envelope. The last student called will receive the pot of money, which he or she will most likely spend celebrating with classmates.
The School of Medicine has enjoyed excellent match results over the years, with more than 50 percent of students consistently entering primary care residencies, fulfilling a key part of the school’s mission to train primary care doctors.
Last year, 127 students from the SOM class of 2017 were matched with residencies. The match included 66 students in internal medicine, family medicine and pediatrics, representing 52 percent of the class. That figure included a record 18 students in family medicine. There were also eight students in emergency medicine and seven in obstetrics & gynecology. Fifty-five members of the class were staying in Massachusetts, including 26 at UMMS, fulfilling the medical school’s mission to care for the citizens of the commonwealth.
For the second year, the event will be broadcast via Facebook Live here. Look for additional coverage of the event on UMassMedNow on Friday afternoon.
