Meharry students successfully “matched” in dozens of residency training programs from coast to coast including such prestigious academic health centers as Mayo Clinic, Cincinnati Children’s , Baylor College of Medicine, New York Hospital-Weill Cornell medical center, Washington University in St. Louis, University of California, San Francisco, Brigham & Women’s Hospital and Meharry Medical College.

More than 30,000 applicants apply for the match to find a position at a U.S. teaching hospital where they will undertake a three to seven year period of specialized training. Meharry’s overall match rate of 89 percent for the 2011 class of graduating seniors exceeds the national match rate of 73 percent for all applicants. 

Match rates can be an indicator of career interest among U.S. medical school seniors. The majority of Meharry’s class of 89 fourth-year medical students were matched in the primary care fields of: Internal Medicine, Pediatrics, Obstetrics & Gynecology and Family Medicine. Sixty percent of Meharry fourth year students matched into primary care specialties. In addition, several students matched into other such specialty programs as orthopedics, urology, emergency medicine, psychiatry and radiology.

“At Meharry we proudly embrace and emphasize primary care as a very worthy career pursuit for future physicians,” said Charles P. Mouton, M.D., M.S., Dean, School of Medicine & Senior Vice President for Health Affairs. “The fact that so many of our students go into the primary care field is a tribute to our unique and nurturing brand of medical education, our institution and its role in helping to fill the increasing need for primary care physicians across the country.”

Match Day is the culmination of a process where medical schools students across the country submit their top three choices for residency programs to the National Resident Matching Program (NRMP), a nonprofit organization established in 1952 to create a fair mechanism to match the preferences of applicants to U.S. residency positions. Students who were “matched” received news on Monday that they would be assigned to one of their preference hospitals, but they did not find out which one until today as medical schools across the country celebrated Match Day.

Meharry's President Wayne J. Riley, M.D., MPH, MBA, MACP noted that "these impressive results once again validate the impressive work that Meharry Medical College contributes to the nation by nurturing the important "social mission" of American medical education by providing an outstanding cadre of new medical graduates who will work to address the shortage and imbalances in our healthcare workforce.  I look forward with great enthusiasm to welcoming these newest colleagues to the profession in a few months as they receive their hard-earned degrees and go forth with the very special calling of healing those in need.” 

Number of students who matched in each specialty area:

 Primary Care Specialties

Family Medicine                                    10

Internal Medicine                                   17

Pediatrics                                                16

Obstetrics/Gynecology                            6

Specialties

Anesthesiology                                                 7

Emergency Medicine                                       6

General Surgery                                               3

Neurology                                                          1

Orthopedic Surgery                                          3

Urology                                                               4

Dermatology                                                     1

Psychiatry                                                          3

Radiology                                                         4

Other Specialties                                            8

About the National Resident Matching Program: The National Resident Matching Program conducts Match Day annually to match the preference of applicants with their choice of medical residency programs that offer available training positions at U.S. teaching hospitals. A resident is a medical school graduate who is undertaking a 3 to 7 year period of specialized training in a medical specialty.

About Meharry Medical College: Meharry Medical College founded in 1876, is the nation’s largest private, independent historically black academic health center dedicated to educating minority and other health professionals. True to its heritage, it is a United Methodist Church affiliated institution. The College is particularly well known for its uniquely nurturing, highly effective educational programs; emerging preeminence in health disparities research; culturally sensitive, evidence-based health services and significant contribution to the diversity of the nation’s health professions workforce. Diverse Issues in Higher Education’s ranking of institutions annually lists Meharry as a leading national educator of African Americans with M.D. and D.D.S. degrees and Ph.D. degrees in the biomedical sciences.