It's a Match!

For the students in the RowanSOM Class of 2015 – and for thousands of fourth year medical students across the country – it was a day they will long remember. Friday, March 20, was “Match Day,” the day when graduating medical students learned where they ‘matched’ to their first jobs as physicians.

Just past noon on that day, the fourth-year RowanSOM students who gathered at The Mansion on Main Street in Voorhees were handed thin sealed envelopes that held the most highly awaited news of their budding medical careers.

Following what was arguably the most anticipated, if not nerve wracking, few minutes of their lives, the students joined RowanSOM Assistant Dean for Student Affairs Dr. Kathryn Lambert in counting down the final few seconds before simultaneously tearing open their envelopes. Instantly, the tension-filled atmosphere in the room dissolved into a chaotic mix of joy, hugs, laughter and tears as the next generation of physicians learned the destinations that await them as they begin their careers as physicians.

At RowanSOM, 60 students in the Class of 2015 participated in the National Resident Matching Program (NRMP). They were joined by 82 of their classmates who previously matched to osteopathic or military residencies.

The Class of 2015 continues an amazing legacy of Match Day success for the medical school. More than 97 percent of this year’s students successfully matched to residency programs, including 51 students who secured residency positions at New Jersey institutions. Others from the class will join residency programs at such well-known out-of-state programs as Brown University, Duke University, the University of California Irvine Medical Center and the Cleveland Clinic. Depending on the specialty chosen, the RowanSOM graduates will spend the next three to seven years as resident physicians.

The Match Day process began in the fall when applicants applied to the residency programs where they would like to train. Program directors conducted interviews with applicants through the winter and, by late February, the applicants submitted a list of their preferred programs to the NRMP. This year, 41,334 applicants registered with the NRMP for the chance to land one of 30,212 available positions.