Match Day!

I worked for 18+ years at Lehigh Valley Health Network and would hear about the new batch of resident doctors that would be coming to our network each year without really understanding the process of how they got there.

It became "real" to us when our daughter-in-law, Ali, who will be graduating in May from med school and went through the Match Day process. Ali and our son, Rob, have given us permission to tell their story.

Ali has been a med student at Penn State College of Medicine in Hershey and will soon be transitioning to her surgical residency training program.

Typically, medical students apply to residency programs in the fall of their final year of med school. Over the next few months, they travel to meet with hospitals and programs that offer residency openings. Ali wants to be a surgeon specializing in plastic surgery and needed to go all over the country for potential interviews during the process. Often, this meant several interviews a week and she spent a great deal of time in airports and overnight stays hopping from location to location. During this travel time, Rob held down the fort at home, supporting her along the way.

When her interviews concluded in January, Ali submitted her ranked list of preferred residency programs to the National Resident Matching Program.

What is the National Resident Matching Program? Prior to 1952, hospitals competed to hire the best students in med schools by offering positions earlier and earlier, often attempting to lock in a student that was only halfway through their medical school training. When the rules became a little more rigid and hospitals were limited to make offers only to fourth year med students, they would pressure those students into making a decision within 12 hours of the offer, which was often sent by telegram. Hospitals would scramble to lock in a student while the student tried to delay the decision until all offers were on the table.

In 1952, a new centralized matching system was put in place that reduced some of the chaos. Med students would submit a ranked list of their preferred program, and the program submitted a ranked list of their preferred students. Then a mathematical algorithm was applied to match student to program that was optimized to the advantage of both parties.

Today, once the system matches hospital program to student, an email goes out on the Monday before Match Day letting the student know that they have been matched to a preferred hospital program but not which one. Since not all students are matched, this allows unmatched students to apply quickly to unfilled positions. This is called the Supplemental Offer and Acceptance Program.

Ali received an email on Monday saying that she was matched to one of her choices but did not reveal which program she would be attending. Because the number of Plastic Surgery openings was limited, she was also considered for a general surgery opportunity.

Rob and Ali invited their family and many friends that have supported them through their journey to a Match Day "unveiling" party this past Friday at their home. They also set up a zoom call so that those who could not attend in person could watch the event live. Additionally, as part of the celebration, they put hats from each preferred program on a table as a sort of "draft". Ali would receive the email telling her what program she was matched to and she'd put on the hat representing the school.

The email came in exactly at noon with all of us watching and waiting. Great news! Ali was accepted into the Plastic Surgery residency program which was her first choice - University of Illinois Chicago!

Rob and Ali

We wish Rob and Ali the very best as they prepare to move to Chicago in the next few months for Ali's six-year residency program.