Graduating Emory University School of Medicine medical students experienced their "rite of passage" today when they discovered where they are headed next on their journeys to become physicians. More than 100 Emory students gathered at noon for the highly anticipated Match Day ceremony, joining thousands of U.S. medical school seniors participating in ceremonies nationwide, to learn where they will spend their years of residency training following graduation.

The students applied for residency positions at US teaching hospitals through the National Residency Match Program that annually matches students with residency programs. 

“The match is representative of all of the hard work students have done at Emory and nationwide to join the profession of medicine.  Emory has been so fortunate to have these students as part of our community,” says J. William Eley, MD, MPH, executive associate dean for medical education and student affairs, Emory University School of Medicine.

Emory’s Class of 2018 included 140 students participating in the NRMP. Forty-seven students will spend all or part of their residencies in the state of Georgia, and 41 of those students will begin their internship year at Emory.

In addition to Emory, the students will receive their residency training at prominent institutions such as Columbia, Duke, Harvard, Johns Hopkins, Stanford, New York University, University of California San Francisco, University of Pennsylvania, University of Washington, Vanderbilt, Washington University in St. Louis, among others.

Some of the most popular specialties chosen by Emory's graduating seniors in the 2018 NRMP match include: Internal Medicine (34), Pediatrics (17), General Surgery (13), Orthopedic Surgery (8) Emergency Medicine (7) and Psychiatry (7).

Prior to today’s NRMP match, three Emory graduating seniors had matched into military residencies, four students had matched in Urology, and nine students had matched in Ophthalmology.

The Match was established in 1952, at the request of medical students, to provide a fair and impartial transition to the graduate medical education experience. A complex algorithm, administered by the NRMP, factors in the preferences of the students with the preferences of residency programs in order to match students and training programs.