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Date: March 19, 2009
Contact: Terri Guess
Communications & Public Affairs
Phone:973-972-3000
Email: guesstp@umdnj.edu
UMDNJ Sends Hundreds of New Physicians to Hospital Residencies Nationwide
Click Here to view Robert Wood Johnson Medical School's Match Day Results
NEWARK/NEW BRUNSWICK/CAMDEN, NJ– Excitement and jubilation were the order of the day on the campuses of the UMDNJ-New Jersey Medical School, the UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School and the UMDNJ-School of Osteopathic Medicine as more than 300 fourth-year students learned where their first jobs as doctors will be.
Precisely at noon Eastern Time, on what has come to be known as Match Day, thousands of medical students across the country simultaneously opened white sealed envelopes to discover eagerly anticipated career news: the medical centers to which they have been “matched” to continue their training as medical residents.
“These fine young men and women have given so much of themselves over the past four years as students at UMDNJ,” said Dr. William F. Owen, Jr., president of UMDNJ. “We are proud of their record of achievement which serves as a testament to the excellent education they received at this university.”
Once again, the match rate for UMDNJ graduates exceeded this year’s 93 percent national average. The combined 2009 match rate for UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, UMDNJ-New Jersey Medical School and UMDNJ-School of Osteopathic Medicine was over 95 percent.
Among the three schools, 404 graduating students enrolled in the match program, 150 from UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, 159 from UMDNJ-New Jersey Medical School and 95 from UMDNJ-School of Osteopathic Medicine. A significant number of these students will remain in New Jersey; 96 students matched to residency programs at UMDNJ and 64 students matched to other residency programs in the state. UMDNJ students also matched to residency programs at prestigious institutions across the country, including Stanford, Duke, Yale, Dartmouth, Johns Hopkins, Columbia, Emory, Mayo School of Graduate Medical Education, Brigham and Women’s, the University of Pennsylvania, Baylor Medical Center, Walter Reed Army Medical Center and New York University.
Conducted annually since 1952 at America’s allopathic medical schools, Match Day is the culmination of a process in which the National Resident Matching Program in Washington, D.C., matches allopathic (M.D.) medical school graduates, along with graduates of osteopathic (D.O.) and foreign medical schools, to the residency positions available in America. The 2009 Match was the largest in history with 29,890 applicants―1,153 more than last year and 4,500 more than participated five years ago. More than half the participants in this year’s Match were U.S medical school seniors (15,638), 400 more than in 2008.
Participants vied for 22,427 first-year residency positions available through the Match this year—the most ever offered by the NRMP―187 more first-year positions than were available last year and 1,235 more than were available five years ago. More than 95 percent (21,340) of the first-year positions nationwide were filled during this Match. The remaining positions are filled through a process known as “the Scramble,” occurring this week.
The University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (UMDNJ) is the nation's largest free-standing public health sciences university with more than 5,500 students attending the state's three medical schools, its only dental school, a graduate school of biomedical sciences, a school of health related professions, a school of nursing and its only school of public health, on five campuses. Last year, there were more than two million patient visits to UMDNJ facilities and faculty at campuses in Newark, New Brunswick/Piscataway, Scotch Plains, Camden and Stratford. UMDNJ operates University Hospital, a Level I Trauma Center in Newark, and University Behavioral HealthCare, a mental health and addiction services network.
