Match success: ECU sending 65 percent into primary care residencies
Esther Nissao, left, and her mother, Adele, smile after learning Esther will be going to the Medical College of Georgia for a residency in pediatrics. Photo by Doug Boyd
GREENVILLE, N.C. — Nearly two-thirds of the medical students graduating from East Carolina University this spring will go into primary care residencies.
Those are the results of the annual Match Day, celebrated today amid hugs, cheers and tears of joy at the Brody Medical Sciences Building.
Of the 68 students participating in the match, 13 – the same number as last year – are entering family medicine residencies. Another 13 are entering some type of internal medicine residency. A dozen students are entering pediatric residency programs, and three are entering obstetrics and gynecology. Those numbers equal 65 percent of the students participating in the match.
Esther Nissao is going to the Medical College of Georgia to train in pediatrics.
“Many years hard at work and now it’s finally paid off,” she said as her mother, Adele, smiled beside her. “I’m glad to be going to the next stage of my medical career.”
Shane Martin is also headed into a pediatrics residency. He and his wife, Katie, and their son, Sands, are going to Naval Medical Center in San Diego.
“We’re really excited. We’re going to surf a lot,” said Katie Martin, as she held 9-month-old Sands.
“We’re going to have another baby out there,” Shane Martin said.
Before they provide direct patient care, U.S. medical school graduates normally complete a three- to seven-year residency program accredited in a recognized medical specialty. Medical students at all the nation’s medical schools learned their destinations today.
The class of 2011 was accepted into institutions in 24 states in 17 specialties. The Brody School of Medicine and PCMH will be home to 13 class members. Twenty-four graduates will stay in North Carolina.
Student Timothy Thurber was the last one to have his name called and, by tradition, received a basket of cash — $259 in this case — donated by other students.
The National Residency Match Program, a private, not-for-profit organization, provides a method for matching applicants for residency positions in the United States with residency programs at various teaching hospitals. Applicants and hospitals rank each other in order of preference, and a computer matches them based upon those rankings.
According to the NRMP, the number of available residency positions this year was the highest in match history. This year, 37,735 U.S. and international applicants – also a record – vied for more than 26,000 residency positions. The number of students nationwide matching into family medicine residencies rose 11 percent over 2010.
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View slideshow from Match Day at http://www.ecu.edu/news/poe/matchday.cfm.