Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine ‘Match Day’ Points Students to Career Beginnings

In dramatic tradition, students open their envelopes to find out where they will serve their residencies

Students poised to graduate the Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine with their medical degrees this spring have opened the envelopes and discovered their matches to residency programs across the country.

The Match Day ® career-milestone tradition began at MetLife Stadium at exactly noon - when thousands of other medical students around the country also discovered their own new beginnings within those envelopes.

“We are so proud of these future physicians who are uniquely qualified to thrive in a new state of healthcare that will focus as much on keeping people healthy as curing illness and disease,’’ said Robert C. Garrett, chief executive officer of Hackensack Meridian Health. “We are eager to have our students start their residencies in Hackensack Meridian hospitals as well as other fine institutions.’’

The doctors-to-be are on track to complete their medical education at the School, with commencement planned for June 8.

“Match Day is always a thrill,” said Jeffrey Boscamp, M.D., president and dean of the School. “It’s one of those validations of a chosen vocation - and there’s nothing like it.”

The 85 students expected to graduate are roughly split between students from the 2019 cohort who are completing the four-year track, and a contingent from the 2020 Cohort who are finishing their medical degree in three years, as part of the Phase 3-Residency (P3-R) option. Almost everyone in the P3-R group will assume residencies across the Hackensack Meridian Health network later this year.

They are all among an estimated 44,000 who found out today where they will “match” through the National Resident Matching Program® (NRMP).

This is the third Match Day for the School, which received its full accreditation from the Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME) last month. Students from the Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine have previously matched at some of the nation’s most competitive residency programs, including those at the Mayo Clinic, the University of Pennsylvania, the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and others. Specialties have included psychiatry, emergency medicine, general surgery, anesthesiology, neurology and obstetrics/gynecology, among a wide range of other fields.

According to the NRMP, the Program is a private, non-profit organization established in 1952 at the request of medical students to provide an orderly and fair mechanism for matching the preferences of applicants for U.S. residency positions with the preferences of residency program directors. Each year “the Match” encompasses more than 47,000 registrants and 39,000 positions through its Main Residency Match, along with Fellowship Matches for more than 70 subspecialties through its Specialties Matching Service (SMS).

The Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine students still have to graduate. But their “matches” span a variety of specialties, and their residencies will be the next step in their medical training.