UW medical school students meet their Match
Fourth-year students across the nation recently learned where they will pursue three- to seven-year residency training.Media Contact: Kim Blakeley - 206-685-1323, krb13@uw.edu
Last week, nearly 250 fourth-year students at the University of Washington School of Medicine joined their peers nationally in learning where they will spend the next three to seven years training in residency programs.
The UW students, in Seattle and in WWAMI-program states (Washington, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana and Idaho), matched into residencies in 26 medical specialties spanning 40 states. Nearly 50% matched into primary care specialties including family medicine, general internal medicine, pediatrics and psychiatry.
Primary care specialists are much needed in the physician workforce, particularly in rural areas. More than one in three UW students matched into residencies in the WWAMI region. Those sites included Providence Sacred Heart in Spokane, Wash., the University of Wyoming Family Medicine Residency in Casper; Providence Hospital in Anchorage, Alaska; the Family Medicine Residency of Western Montana in Missoula; Kootenai Health in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho; and UW Medical Center in Seattle.
Students apply to residency programs at the beginning of their last year of medical school. In turn, residency program directors rank applicants. A match occurs when a program accepts a student’s application.
Match Day was developed by the National Residency Matching Program, a U.S.-based private nonprofit, nongovernmental organization created in 1952 to place U.S. medical school students into residency training programs. This year, more than 44,000 applicants matched into 6,400 residencies.
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