Soon-to-be doctors from Cooper Medical School of Rowan University celebrate virtual Match Day 2021
Today, Cooper Medical School of Rowan University (CMSRU) fourth year students joined thousands of medical students from across the nation in learning the next step in the journey to becoming practicing physicians as the National Residency Match Program (NRMP) announced their official residency “Match.”
Like all major events this year, CMSRU’s Match Day was a virtual affair. At noon, students received a special email from the NRMP that contained the information on the program where they will go for residency training. This was followed by a CMSRU livestreamed celebratory event, where students personally shared their Match news with more than 1,100 online viewers who joined the special broadcast. The production also included a virtual pinning of each residency on a map of the nation, a pandemic-modification of what has become a beloved tradition for CMSRU Match Day celebrations.
“We miss being shoulder-to-shoulder in our medical education building with students and their families as they open their envelopes on this exciting and momentous day,” said CMSRU Dean Annette C. Reboli, MD. “But we were grateful that we had the opportunity to share in the celebration of this significant milestone with our students, despite having to do it virtually.”
“CMSRU’s Match Day results were stellar once again this year,” continued Reboli. “I couldn’t be more proud of our students, and I congratulate the families, friends, faculty and staff who supported them through their medical school education.”
With a 98 percent match rate, CMSRU is well above the national match rate average of 92.8 percent. CMSRU students were offered residency positions at some of the nation’s most prestigious and competitive programs.
“The quality of the programs both in the region and across the country is very impressive. During an unpredictable year, the fact that CMSRU students did so well is a great reflection on them, and also our extraordinary academic and career counseling programs. Thank you to the faculty who have worked so hard to prepare our students for this moment.”
Forty-three of the 96 students (45 percent) will be entering training programs that prepare residents in primary care medicine: 31 will begin internal or family medicine residencies; seven will specialize in pediatrics; and eight will go into obstetrics and gynecology. We also had students match in some of the most competitive specialties, including neurosurgery, dermatology, orthopedic surgery, plastic surgery, urology, thoracic surgery, emergency medicine, and radiation oncology.
Twenty-four percent of the class will remain in New Jersey to complete their training, including 12 students who matched at CMSRU/Cooper University Health Care.
Members of this class also matched at a range of esteemed programs across the country, including Brown, Columbia, Dartmouth, NYP-Weill Cornell, University of Pennsylvania, and Yale. Other well-known and highly-regarded programs include: A.I. Dupont/Nemours, Barrow Neurological Institute, Boston University, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, Kaiser Permanente, Rush University, Thomas Jefferson, Tufts, Tulane, University of Connecticut, University of Michigan, University of Virginia, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, and Wake Forest.
The 2021 Main Residency Match was the largest in NRMP history. A record-high 42,000 applicants submitted program choices for 38,106 total positions, the most ever offered in the Match. The number of available first-year (PGY-1) positions rose to 35,194, an increase of 928 (2.7%) over 2020.