Match Day 2008: UA Medical Students Learn Residency Assignments

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Match Day 2008: UA Medical Students Learn Residency Assignments

The theme of the UA's Match Day event was "It's a Jungle Out There."

Medical students learned where they'll spend the next three to eight years.

By University Communications
March 21, 2008

For four years, students at The University of Arizona College of Medicine work toward “Match Day” – the day they learn where they will spend the next several years as resident-physicians.

On Thursday, results were released at Match Day ceremonies across the country.

Members of the Class of 2008 received traditional Match Day sealed envelopes, which contained letters showing where students will spend the next several years as resident-physicians.

Match Day is the culmination of a year’s work in the complex process that matches the nation’s graduating medical students with residency programs.

During the first half of their senior year, medical students applied for positions at residency programs. They then visited those progams and were interviewed by the program directors.

In February, the students submitted their list of choices in order of preference to the National Residency Matching Program headquarters in Washington, D.C. At the same time, residency program directors submitted their rank-ordered lists of preferred candidates.

A computer matched each student to the residency program highest on the student’s list that had offered a position to the applicant.

Residency programs vary in length according to specialty, from three years for general medicine/family practice specialties to eight years for the most specialized of surgeons. A residency is a major step in building a medical career.

The Class of 2008 includes 102 graduates – 51 women and 51 men. Most of the graduates are expected to remain in Arizona for their residencies. Doctor of medicine degrees will be conferred on May 17.

The UA College of Medicine Graduate Medical Education Program oversees 41 accredited residency programs in all major specialties and subspecialties. Approximately 450 residents and fellows are trained at the College of Medicine’s primary teaching hospital, University Medical Center; a total of 14 other major participating institutions in Tucson and Phoenix also are utilized.

Seven new residency programs are being created by the UA/University Physicians Hospital Graduate Medical Education Consortium. The new programs will be based primarily at University Physicians Hospital with rotations throughout the state, including the Southern Arizona Veteran Affairs Health Care System and the Indian Health Service.

Initial accreditation has been received for three of the programs: medicine and psychiatry will begin in July and radiology will begin a year later, in July 2009. Programs in emergency medicine, neurology, family medicine and ophthalmology are awaiting accreditation.

By the end of 2011, it is projected that 118 residents will be participating in the new programs, which will focus on providing health care in rural and underserved areas of Arizona to help reduce the Arizona physician shortage and improve access to health care throughout the state.