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Relationship Between Residency Match Distance From Medical School and Virtual Application, School Characteristics,
Ammar Hasnie1, Usman Hasnie1, Benjamin Nelson1
1Department of Medicine, University of Alabama at Birmingham Heersink School of Medicine, Birmingham, USA.
Cureus
|June 12, 2023
Summary
The COVID-19 pandemic shortened the geographic match distance for US medical students. Factors like public schools, higher in-state percentages, and research funding influenced closer residency matches.
Area of Science:
- Medical Education
- Residency Match Process
- Public Health
Background:
- The COVID-19 pandemic significantly altered medical residency applications, eliminating away rotations and shifting interviews to virtual formats.
- This disruption necessitated an examination of its impact on the geographic outcomes of the residency match process for senior medical students.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on the geographic match distance of United States (US) senior medical students across all medical specialties.
- To analyze how factors such as institution type, research funding, geographic region, and specialty competitiveness influenced match distance pre- and post-pandemic.
Main Methods:
- Utilized publicly available US medical student match data from 2018-2021.
- Developed a novel "match space" metric to quantify geographic match distance, categorizing matches by proximity to the medical school (home institution, state, adjacent state, census division, or non-adjacent state).
- Employed ordinal logistic regression to analyze the impact of pandemic-related changes and institutional/specialty characteristics on match distance, controlling for covariates.
Main Results:
- Post-pandemic, the overall "match space" decreased, indicating shorter geographic matches (adjusted odds ratio [OR] 0.94, p=0.006).
- Shorter match distances were associated with public institutions (OR 0.74), top NIH-funded schools (OR 0.88), and specific regions (Northeast, West).
- Longer match distances correlated with private schools (OR 1.11), Southern region (OR 1.62), and more competitive specialties (OR 1.08).
Conclusions:
- The COVID-19 pandemic led to medical students matching closer to their home institutions.
- Public schools, institutions with higher in-state matriculant percentages, and those with strong research rankings were associated with shorter match distances.
- Specialty competitiveness and geographic region remained significant factors influencing residency match distance.
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