AOA Match pairs medical students up with residency programs

Today, graduating osteopathic medical students learned where they will be doing their osteopathic medical residencies when the AOA released the DO Match results. Of the 2,907 individuals who participated in the AOA Intern/Resident Registration Program, 75% of students and recent graduates successfully matched for a total of 2,179 placements.

Those selecting the DO Match typically pursue careers in primary care, as evidenced by today’s results.

• Primary care accounted for 54% of all matches with a total of 1,171 placements.
• 497 applicants matched into internal medicine, up 13% from last year.
• General surgery matched 144 applicants, an increase of 12% from last year.
• 289 applicants matched into emergency medicine, up 8% from last year.
• In addition to primary care, 1,008 positions were filled in non-primary care specialty areas.

“Students should think deeply about what they want their career in medicine to look like,” says Alice Chen, OMS IV, a student representative on the AOA Board of Trustees who matched today in osteopathic manipulative medicine (OMM) at St. Barnabas Hospital in the Bronx. “I could see how OMM can help people find health, and it really resonated with why I went into medicine in the first place.”

While new osteopathic physicians (DOs) and medical doctors (MDs) work and train together, graduating DOs currently must choose between two systems for their post-graduate education. However, the American Osteopathic Association, the American Association of Colleges of Osteopathic Medicine and Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education began a five year transition to a single system for graduate medical education accreditation.

“The single GME system responds to the dynamic growth and interest in osteopathic medicine, but more importantly it ensures broad access to training for all current and future physicians,” said AOA President Robert Juhasz, DO, who also serves as president of Cleveland Clinic’s South Pointe Hospital.

For Jimmy DeMeo, president of the Student Osteopathic Medical Association, the DO Match offered fewer opportunities for him and his fiancée, Tiffany Barkley, who hopes for a career in child neurology. The two Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine students are participating in the allopathic “couples match” on March 20 because it offered a more direct path for Barkley.

“In the end, we took our chances at securing a position together,” DeMeo said. “Fortunately, for our future colleagues, the single accreditation system should open up more program opportunities that would make it easier for couples to train in the same program.”