San Antonio medical students learn their futures on 'Match Day'

Students across the country find out where they'll perform their residency

SAN ANTONIO – It's a day almost as momentous as medical school graduation — "Match Day."

Medical students across the county on Friday learned where they will be performing their residency for the next three to seven years. After interviewing for and ranking their preferred residency programs, the applicants were matched based on an algorithm that also takes into account the programs' rankings of applicants.

It's a momentous day that will help define the futures of the more than 200 fourth-year medical students who gathered at the John T. Floore Country Store in Helotes, said Dr. Robert Hromas, dean of UT Health San Antonio's Joe R. and Teresa Lozano Long School of Medicine. 

"Today, these students know the direction their life is taking the rest of their careers," Hromas said.

The National Resident Matching Program, which matches the applicants with residency programs, reported a record-high 37,103 applicants who submitted program choices for 33,167 positions. NRMP says 30,232 of those openings were first-year positions.

Hromas said UT Health San Antonio works closely with "just a couple" of students who did not match with a residency program "to promote them so that they can enter their medical careers in a best way forward possible."

KSAT 12 followed one of the students through the Long School of Medicine's Match Day celebration. Watch her story above.


About the Author:

Garrett Brnger is a reporter with KSAT 12.