3-24-09

Match

Senior medical students graduating from Southern Illinois University School of Medicine have again matched with competitive residency training programs this year.

SIU seniors received the results from the National Resident Matching Program last Thursday and learned where they will be doing their residency training which follows medical school.  Dr. Erik Constance, associate dean of student affairs at SIU School of Medicine in Springfield, says 64 SIU medical students were matched with residency programs in Illinois, the Midwest and around the country.  Constance explains the match program.

SOUND BITE:   “Match day is a day all across the country where medical students who are going to graduate, find out where they will be do their postgraduate training or their residency training across the country.” 

Forty-five percent of this SIU graduating class of medical students will enter primary care residencies.  Primary care specialties include family practice, internal medicine, pediatrics, and obstetrics and gynecology.   Dr. Constance explains where the students will do their residencies.

SOUND BITE: “. . . over 75 percent of our students are going to be in the Midwest.  And one of the thing we have tried to do over the last few years is send them to outstanding residency programs and then try to recruit them back her to central and southern Illinois once they are ready to practice medicine.”

Dr. Constance said Match Day is the culmination of the four years of medical school for the students who will begin their residency training in July after their graduation in May.

This is Ruth Slottag at SIU School of Medicine in Springfield.