From the Dean: Match Day results
As promised last week, here is a summary of the Match Day results for our soon-to-be graduating senior medical students. As you may recall, a week ago today our senior medical students (and their roughly 40,000 residency applicant counterparts from across the country and throughout the world) learned where they will be spending the next three to five years as they complete residency training. Of the 75 expected UND SMHS 2023 medical program graduates, most matched in the Midwest; North Dakota was the state with the highest number of matches overall, followed by Minnesota. Together, North Dakota and Minnesota accounted for about 40% of our student matches. Slightly more than half of our students matched into a primary care specialty (defined as family medicine, internal medicine, Ob/Gyn, or pediatrics). We again had good representation in the much-needed specialty of psychiatry when compared nationally. And perhaps contrary to what you may have heard recently in the media about unfilled emergency medicine residency slots nationwide, emergency medicine was the fourth most popular choice for our students (after internal medicine, family medicine, and Ob/Gyn in that order).
From the local residency program standpoint, our various North Dakota programs offered 62 first-year positions in the match, and 61 (98%) filled. That’s an impressive result, and better than the national average of a 93% match rate. Our very high match rate is a good omen for the ability to continue to address our physician workforce needs, as graduates of residency programs often settle and practice near where they completed their residencies. In addition to the North Dakota residency programs (including the family medicine residency at Altru Health System), our students matched at such competitive places as the Mayo and Cleveland Clinics, and medical centers at the Universities of Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska, and Utah, among others. In fact, we have six students headed to Mayo in either their first or second year of residency training.
The other good news is that on Monday, the North Dakota Senate Finance and Taxation Committee discussed Senate Concurrent Resolution 4019, which deals with the proposed elimination of the mill levy on North Dakota property taxes that provides almost $11 million in funding to the UND SMHS each biennium. The resolution was amended in committee with an adjusted start date of December 31, 2026. Thus, assuming that this amended resolution passes in both chambers of the legislature and is approved by the voters in the 2024 election, we will have the opportunity to request alternate funding from the 69th Legislative Assembly in the winter/spring of 2025 to make sure that our funding remains intact as of 2027. By the way, the reason that this resolution only becomes effective after a vote by the general public is that the provision of the mill levy to the School is contained in the North Dakota Constitution and thus can only be changed by popular vote. The adjustment in the potential effective date was a positive development.
Accordingly, gratitude again is extended from our School to Courtney Koebele, executive director of the North Dakota Medical Association, for her advocacy of the UND SMHS and especially for her testimony regarding the date change of implementation on this resolution if it were to become law.
Finally, I am away today and tomorrow at the annual meeting in Chicago of the Council of Deans (COD), organized by the Association of American Medical Colleges. This is the first COD meeting that I’ve attended since 2019 due to the pandemic. Most deans of U.S. medical schools attend the meeting, and I’m looking forward to comparing notes with them and learning about innovative programming going on at their schools. I’ll report back next week on what I learn at the meeting.
Joshua Wynne, MD, MBA, MPH
Vice President for Health Affairs, UND
Dean, UND School of Medicine & Health Sciences
