Einstein's Class of 2013 Marks a Turning Point in Their Careers at Match Day

March 15, 2013 – (BRONX, NY) – Members of Einstein's medical school class of 2013 celebrated a critical milestone in their medical careers today: Match Day. The time-honored event culminated at noon EST, when each graduating medical student learned where and in what specialty they will enter their residency. Shortly after Einstein's commencement ceremony in May, these students will report to the hospitals to which they have "matched," where they will practice medicine as physicians for the first time.

"This is one of the happiest days that a dean of students can possibly experience," said Stephen Baum, M.D., senior associate dean for students at Einstein. "Students are moving on to the next step in their careers. It's really exciting. And I think most of them have gotten really high choices on their list."

Of the 195 Einstein students who matched today, internal medicine once again took the top spot with 47 matches. The top five included: pediatrics (32), emergency medicine (19), radiology-diagnostic (17) and surgery (12). Also of note were our first two residents going into child neurology and a jump in the number entering dermatology (6, up from 4 in the last 3 years), family medicine (10, up from 6 last year) and orthopedics (8, up from 6 last year).

Match Day is a much-anticipated event, held at medical schools around the country. As reported by the National Resident Matching Program (NRMP), the organization that conducts the Match, total Match registrants topped 40,000 for the first time this year. U.S. medical school seniors, who matched at a rate of 94.5 percent, made up 16,390 of the 25,463 applicants who successfully matched to first-year residency positions.

"This is one of the happiest days that a dean of students can possibly experience. Students are moving on to the next step in their career. It’s really exciting."

– Stephen Baum, M.D.

"There are fewer and fewer positions after the Match," noted Dr. Baum. "There are more and more American medical graduates and the same number of residencies — so it's getting difficult to get a spot. But our students generally do extremely well."

NRMP, a private, not-for-profit organization, was established in 1952 at the request of medical students to provide an orderly and fair mechanism to match applicants and open residency positions. It uses a computerized mathematical algorithm to align the preferences of applicants with the preferences of residency programs in order to fill the residency training positions available at U.S. hospitals.