Navigating the Match

“The Match”…in the grand scheme of the journey to become a doctor, through the many tests, applications, and challenges, this hurdle is arguably the most stressful, and hopefully most rewarding, one to tackle. That’s what motivated me to write about it extensively back when I was a medical student. In the world of online message boards that produce more anxiety than they’re worth, of ever-increasing numbers of residency applicants, and an increasing pressure to perform, I wanted to provide not only a road map for those who are going through the match process themselves, but a firsthand look at my journey to matching in general surgery.

You’ll see my three part series about the match on the front page of the blog. That data is from 2016, which was the most current data when I was applying. Since then, there has been yearly data put out by the NRMP on the match process. The documents they provide are available here: NRMP Main Residency Match Data 2018.

While I’m not going to go back through and update my old blog posts, the documents have the exact same titles as they did in 2016, so you can update the numbers yourself. Overall, the points that I made in that blog post back then still apply today, even if the numbers are slightly different.

The Match process is a daunting one to say the least, and I hope my work back as a student helps you through it. You can feel free to email me (link is listed in the top menu) if you have any questions, comments or concerns.

Good luck,

-Brandon