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The Problem Of Matching Students And Hospitals

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integral and inseparable part of contemporary medical education, the problem of matching students and hospitals seemed to find a solution. The residency matching program was actually quite simple. Each residency program in the country informed a centralized computer of the number of available positions it had to offer. For example, Keystone offered twelve first-year positions in Internal Medicine, Baptist offered six first-year positions in Surgery, and so forth. In reality, there were more residency positions available than there were graduating students to fill them. Graduating medical students were sent a list of all available first-year residency positions in the country. They were expected to make formal application to any …show more content…

Ironically, some of the most desirable residency positions in the country failed to match each year and were ultimately given to students who failed to receive a residency in the computer match. When applying for the computer match, students had to agree to accept the residency position they received in the match. A student couldn 't be assigned to any hospital they didn 't include on their list, and it was guaranteed the majority of students would match no lower than their third preference. It boggled my mind to think the fate of thousands of medical students was in the hands, or data banks, of a computer. Prior to arranging my interviews, I applied for first-year Internal Medicine positions at a number of Philadelphia area hospitals and arranged to have letters of recommendation from Dr. Steinway and Dr. Lucci, and the Dean 's letter from Dr. Saire accompany my applications. Although the decision was a difficult one to make, I decided to take my residency in Internal Medicine because it seemed to offer the greatest number of dividends for the amount of time invested. Admittedly, I was in a hurry to start practicing Medicine, and I could see spending three years studying Internal Medicine, but not five to seven years studying Surgery. My decision to stay in Philadelphia was based on my own observation that Philadelphia was probably the greatest medical town in the world.

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