Posted on March 15, 2004 at 3:45 p.m.

WHAT:

UAB School of Medicine seniors find out where they will conduct their residency training on Match Day, an annual event coordinated by the National Resident Matching Program. Approximately 16,000 fourth-year medical students across the country will receive their residency assignments simultaneously on Match Day.

WHERE:

Match Day ceremonies will be held in Volker Hall, lecture room A.
Media crews should enter the building at the 7th Ave. entrance across from Children’s Hospital. Go to the plaza level, up the outside staircase.

WHEN:

Match Day activities will begin about 10:15 a.m. on Thursday, March 18.

BACKGROUND:

Following graduation from medical school, new physicians spend at least three years in a residency program, receiving advanced training in their chosen field. Fourth-year medical school students all across the country apply to their desired residency programs through the National Resident Matching Program and receive their acceptances on Match Day, which was begun in 1952.

Last year, nearly half of UAB’s 2003 School of Medicine graduates were accepted into postgraduate residency training in one of the primary care fields; internal medicine, family practice, pediatrics or obstetrics/gynecology. Eighty-five percent of U.S. medical school seniors are accepted by one of their top three choices and more than 60 percent are admitted to their first choice. More than 24,000 medical students from around the world participated in the match last year.