The child and adolescent psychiatry match: problems and potential solutions

The Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Match was instituted in 1996 to establish fair and uniform resident recruitment practices.

The impetus for its use was the desire to protect applicants and training programs from premature decisions based on fears of not securing a training position or not filling a program.

However, since not all training programs participate in the Match or abide by the terms of participation established within the Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Caucus of the American Association of Directors of Psychiatric Residency Training (AADPRT), the playing field the Match was intended to level remains uneven. With such differing practices, the resident recruitment process presents a confusing array of conflicting rules and the viability of an effective Match becomes questionable.

Alternatively, problems exposed in the initial years of the Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Match present the opportunity to design solutions that will strengthen it. These include the establishment of an Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) requirement that all programs participate in the Match, empowerment of the Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Match Review Board to lever meaningful responses to Match violations, and the restriction of previously matched residents from enrollment in subsequent Matches without clarification of the circumstances that led to their original Match agreement not being honored.