Newswise — After years of studying, deciding what type of doctor they want to be and applying to numerous residency programs, 113 graduating Johns Hopkins medical students — and thousands of others across the nation — will find out precisely at noon on March 15 where they will launch their careers as doctors.
The Match Day celebration at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine will take place on the 2nd floor of the Armstrong Medical Education Building, 1600 McElderry Street in Baltimore. The students, along with family members, friends and mentors, will gather for brunch at 10:45 a.m., followed by a brief program leading up to the dramatic moment at 12 noon, when students will open envelopes telling them which hospitals and specialty programs have accepted them for their residency.
“Some of the most popular specialty areas among this year’s graduates are general internal medicine, pediatrics, emergency medicine, ophthalmology and general surgery,” says Thomas Koenig, M.D, associate dean for student affairs at Hopkins. “After training in those and other disciplines, many go on to fellowships in specialized areas of medicine, such as cardiology and pulmonology—or they may pursue training in surgical subspecialties, such as vascular or thoracic surgery,” Koenig says.
There are 35 students applying to general internal medicine residencies, while 12 would like to go into pediatrics, 10 have chosen emergency medicine and five are going into general surgery. The rest are spread out in a variety of specialty areas, ranging from radiology to neurosurgery and orthopedics to Ob/Gyn.
This is the first graduating class at Johns Hopkins where all the medical students have completed four years of a new curriculum, called Genes to Society. The curriculum includes courses that traditionally have not been taught in medical school, including health care disparities, patient safety and quality and palliative care. And there is more focus on teaching about substance abuse and pain.
Also, topics such as ethics, population health and the structure of health care systems have been woven throughout the curriculum instead of being taught as stand-alone courses. Students in this class began to learn communication and physical exam skills in their first year and were taught to consider socioeconomic and lifestyle factors when evaluating a patient’s health.
The graduates seeking residency placements in this year’s match are evenly divided between men and women, with 57 men and 56 women.
Match Day takes place on the same day every year at medical schools around the country. The National Resident Matching Program (NRMP) pairs the wishes of the students with the needs of hospitals’ residency programs. For couples who wish to match in the same city, there’s a special process that links their applications.
Prior to Match Day, students complete lengthy paperwork and on-site interviews with hospitals and then provide a ranked list of top choices. Hospitals submit a similar list indicating openings, preferred students, and specialty or generalist preferences. Each applicant is matched via computer algorithm to the hospital residency program that is highest on the applicant’s list and that has offered the applicant a position. Johns Hopkins students often match to their first- or second-choice sites.
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