FAU Charles E Schmidt College of Medicine Boasts 100% Match for Class of 2019
BY: Robert S Weinroth
Today was Match Day throughout the country as thousands of graduating medical students are learning where they will be doing their residency.
100% of the 55 new doctors graduating from FAU Charles E Schmidt College of Medicine were “matched,” with eight staying in Florida. Four “couples” matched together.
FAU Schmidt College of Medicine, in its 5th year, has been rated in the top 100 medical schools in the US.
The residency programs that are welcoming the Class of 2019 take three to seven years to complete depending on the medical specialty and are required for physicians to become license-eligible.
Promptly at noon, together with other graduating medical students in the United States, Stuart L. Markowitz, M.D., senior associate dean of student affairs and admissions in FAU’s College of Medicine, invited the Class of 2019 to open the sealed envelopes containing their residency match results. Match Day occurs on the third Friday of March every year.
Telling those in attendance that he viewed the day as either “March Madness” or perhaps, more aptly, “March Magic,” Phillip Boiselle, M.D., dean of FAU’s College of Medicine, told the soon to be graduating doctors that they, “will always be part of the Schmidt College of Medicine family.” He went on, “We are especially proud of your accomplishments, intellectual curiosity, enthusiasm about the practice of medicine, and your compassion for your patients as well as one another, which are all admirable and inspiring in equal measure.”
One-third or 21 members of the graduating class will enter primary care specialties, which include internal medicine, pediatrics, family medicine, and obstetrics/ gynecology. Nearly one-third of the class also matched in highly specialized fields that are among the most competitive in the match process, including urology, ophthalmology, dermatology, radiation oncology, and orthopedic specialties, among others.
In addition, on Match Day, 50 medical students from around the country successfully matched into FAU’s residency programs in internal medicine (27), surgery (10), emergency medicine (6), psychiatry (4) and neurology (3). Sixty-two percent of them have academic (college, medical school) or personal/family connections to Florida.
The class of 2019 placed in several top institutions nationally, including Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, New Hampshire; Northwestern McGaw/Lurie Children’s in Chicago; Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia; Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville; Baylor College of Medicine in Houston; the University of Chicago Medical Center in Chicago; and the University of Michigan Hospital in Ann Arbor.
“Class of 2019, in addition to achieving a 100 percent match rate, you have exceeded our expectations by placing in some of the most competitive specialties in prestigious institutions throughout our nation,” said Markowitz. “Savor this special moment with your colleagues, friends, family and all of us at Florida Atlantic University as we celebrate your many accomplishments on this important day. Congratulations and best is yet to come!”
The 2019 Main Residency Match to be the largest in history, exceeding the more than 43,000 applicants who registered for the 2018 Match. Results of the Main Residency Match are closely watched because they can predict future changes in the physician workforce.
Each residency program at a hospital has a fixed number of first-year positions that they can fill each year based on their accreditation. Leading up to the big day, each student lists in order of preference the residency program that he or she seeks to work with and each residency program then ranks its applicants in order of its own preferences.
