March 17, 2017—(BRONX, NY)—Einstein fourth-year medical students whooped, cheered, and slapped high-fives as they celebrated another successful Match Day. The noontime ceremony marked the all-important “Match”—when graduating medical students learned where they will begin the next phase of their education, transitioning to resident physicians at hospitals across the country. Several weeks after commencement in May, the newly-minted doctors will start training in their chosen specialties.

A beaming Chirag Modi celebrated his radiation-oncology match to Rutgers University-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School.

“It’s amazing after four years of hard work,” Mr. Modi says. “I was willing to go anywhere in the country but matching to my top choice is even better. The patients in this field, the technology, the research in this field—it’s all amazing.”

The most popular residency choice for the class was internal medicine, with 45 students going into the field. Rounding out the top ten specialties were pediatrics (28), emergency medicine (16), obstetrics and gynecology (15), radiology-diagnostic (11), surgery (10), anesthesiology (8), orthopaedics (6), psychiatry (6), and family medicine (6).

“Match Day is one of the most exciting times for our medical students, and their hard work and dedication shows in the quality of their matches,” says Stephen Baum, M.D., senior associate dean for students at Einstein. “It’s wonderful to see the happiness and excitement about starting the next phase of their medical careers.”

At noon, Dr. Baum struck a small gong, setting off an enthusiastic scene as students tore open personalized white envelopes containing a Match letter. Within seconds, Lubin Dining Hall buzzed with joyous cries as classmates hugged, phoned family members, clutched their letters, and posed for selfies.

“It was the best thing that ever happened to me,” says Shoshana Leftin of her Einstein experience, moments after learning she matched in pediatrics to New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center. “I’m in love with my class—they’re such a wonderful supportive group and the spirit of community service—I haven’t found it like this anywhere else. Einstein set us up to be the best doctors we can be with the right priorities to practice medicine.”

The National Resident Matching Program (NRMP), the organization that conducts the annual match, reported that a record-high 35,969 U.S. and international medical school students and graduates vied for 31,757 positions, the most ever offered in the Match. Of the record-high 18,539 U.S. allopathic medical school senior registrants who submitted program choices, 17,480 (94.3 %) matched to first-year positions. The Match rate at Einstein this year was 97.8%.

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.

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