The sound of ripping envelopes echoed through George Hall at noon on Friday, March 20, as fourth-year students at the Augusta University/University of Georgia Medical Partnership opened their Match Day letters.
Inside each envelope was a personal letter revealing where the student would be pursuing their postgraduate medical education.
“This is our 13th Match Day at the Medical Partnership. We are so proud of this class, and I’m happy to say that we have a 97% match rate this year. We are so excited to see all the amazing achievements each of you will accomplish during your careers,” said Dean Shelley Nuss. “Thank you to the faculty, administrators, staff and physician mentors in our community who have devoted their time and efforts to educating our future physicians.”
Match Day is an annual event that takes place after students participate in interviews and visits to residency programs in Georgia and across the country. To determine postgraduate assignments, students ranked the residency programs where they would like to complete their training, and residency programs ranked the student applicants. The lists are then submitted to the nonprofit organization National Resident Matching Program in Washington, D.C., which uses an algorithm to align the choices of the applicants with those of the residency programs. Most students were matched via the NRMP, but some participated in smaller match programs, including ophthalmology. The final pairings are announced simultaneously across the U.S. at noon on Match Day.
Students from the Class of 2026 will be going to 19 states in 15 different specialties. Seventy percent will stay in the Southeast, and 30% will remain in Georgia. Sixty percent will be joining primary care/core specialty programs, defined by the Georgia Board of Health Care Workforce as internal medicine, family medicine, OB-GYN, pediatrics, psychiatry, general surgery and emergency medicine.
These high statistics in core specialties are critical as the country continues to face a physician shortage, especially in Georgia, which ranks 39th in the nation in physicians per capita. Thirty-seven counties in Georgia have no internal medicine physician, 17 have no family medicine physician, 82 have no OB-GYN, 64 have no pediatrician, 94 have no psychiatrist, and 85 have no general surgeon.
“The accomplishments of these talented 67 students have landed them at top-tier residency programs across the nation, and 60% are going into primary care and core specialties, which is critical to combat our lingering physician shortage,” Nuss said.
The most popular specialties from the Medical Partnership Class of 2026 include internal medicine (10), family medicine (7), emergency medicine (7), psychiatry (6) and neurology (6).