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Hello Everyone~
The following URL (http://www.zoomerang.com/survey.zgi?p=WEB2244PGSFGG8) is a link to a survey from your national student leaders regarding the Combined Match Issue. Currently, we have no official student opinion on this topic, so we have gathered to create this survey and get the response of as many students as possible. Responding to this simple survey will only take a few minutes of your valuable time. For us to address this issue appropriately, we need your opinion. We are working hard on your behalf to make a difference and to represent you.
To open the survey click on the link provided above or copy and paste it into your web browser. The survey is only open for TEN DAYS from today (4 Feb 2005) and needs your prompt attention. We will be presenting the data collected from the survey to the AOA at the Feb. 17th mid-year meeting. Please contact your SGA president if you have any problems and they will contact me. Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter and for giving your valued input.
Sincerely,
Emily Hurst, MSIV
COSGP National Chair
Council of Osteopathic Student Government Presidents
In the early 1900s, competition among hospitals for interns and among medical students for good internships led to increasingly early offers of internships to students. By the 1940s, appointments were often made as early as the beginning of the junior year of medical school. Hospitals thus had little information about students' performance, and students frequently had to make a final decision to accept or reject an offer without knowing which other offers might be forthcoming. From 1945 through 1951, efforts were made to enforce a uniform date for accepting offers. However, students were still faced with offers having very short deadlines, compelling them to accept or reject offers without knowing what other offers might be forthcoming. Hospitals often had to scramble for available students, since if an offer was rejected; it was often too late for them to reach their next preferred candidate. A centralized clearinghouse was thus developed as a way of alleviating this chaos and allowing a larger role to the preferences of both students and hospitalsenter the ERAS application system, where students and programs confidentially ranked each other according to how the student felt about the program and how the program felt about the student. This evolved into the current matching system, divided for us (D.O.s) into the AOA and the NRMP (ACGME) matches each with its own separate rank order listthere is also a San Francisco (M.D. Neuro) and Urology match that exist separate from the main NRMP match, but are still open to D.O. students for application. The AOA and NRMP matches are currently separated by about a monthAOA releases its results in February and the NRMP in Marchwith coinciding possibilities to scramble to open spots at the end of each of these matches respectively.
Initially students could match in each of these systems without restriction. This led to the entry of double matchinga student who would match in both an AOA and an ACGME program. Since the Match is a contract between the student and the program, this caused upheaval when students broke one contract to accept another. The reasons for who chose what program variedgeographic location of one program over another, quality of the two acceptances, and so on. The AOA was filling its internships at a rate of 86% up to the year 1999. Enter the year 2000, the AOA and the NMRP, in an effort to stop these breaches of contracts, enacted rules that withdrew a D.O. student from the NRMP once they were acceptance into one of their ranked choices in the AOA matchwhich also gives the student 30 days to sign the contract before possibly being dropped from the matched program, and further being prevented from taking ANY other AOA-approved training program for one (1) year. By 2003 the number of AOA funded/filled internships dropped to 60% . Today 50% or more of our students are entering ACMGE programs without applying to AOA internships.
The theory of a Combined Match is to take both matches, the AOA and the NMRP, and merge them into a single all student matchthe goal being, to ultimately allow students to rank AOA and ACGME programs simultaneously. This will accomplish two things. First it will maintain the AOA and ACGMEs original intent of the 2000 decisionprevent double acceptances and contract breaches. Second, it will allow students the freedom to rank programs, both AOA and ACGME, in an order that best suits their educational needs. In the end, we believe that this logistical change is in keeping with the original spirit of the match conceptwhich is to efficiently connect students and programs, and decrease student stress during the application process.
The following URL (http://www.zoomerang.com/survey.zgi?p=WEB2244PGSFGG8) is a link to a survey from your national student leaders regarding the Combined Match Issue. Currently, we have no official student opinion on this topic, so we have gathered to create this survey and get the response of as many students as possible. Responding to this simple survey will only take a few minutes of your valuable time. For us to address this issue appropriately, we need your opinion. We are working hard on your behalf to make a difference and to represent you.
To open the survey click on the link provided above or copy and paste it into your web browser. The survey is only open for TEN DAYS from today (4 Feb 2005) and needs your prompt attention. We will be presenting the data collected from the survey to the AOA at the Feb. 17th mid-year meeting. Please contact your SGA president if you have any problems and they will contact me. Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter and for giving your valued input.
Sincerely,
Emily Hurst, MSIV
COSGP National Chair
Council of Osteopathic Student Government Presidents
Below is a Brief History of our MATCH
In the early 1900s, competition among hospitals for interns and among medical students for good internships led to increasingly early offers of internships to students. By the 1940s, appointments were often made as early as the beginning of the junior year of medical school. Hospitals thus had little information about students' performance, and students frequently had to make a final decision to accept or reject an offer without knowing which other offers might be forthcoming. From 1945 through 1951, efforts were made to enforce a uniform date for accepting offers. However, students were still faced with offers having very short deadlines, compelling them to accept or reject offers without knowing what other offers might be forthcoming. Hospitals often had to scramble for available students, since if an offer was rejected; it was often too late for them to reach their next preferred candidate. A centralized clearinghouse was thus developed as a way of alleviating this chaos and allowing a larger role to the preferences of both students and hospitalsenter the ERAS application system, where students and programs confidentially ranked each other according to how the student felt about the program and how the program felt about the student. This evolved into the current matching system, divided for us (D.O.s) into the AOA and the NRMP (ACGME) matches each with its own separate rank order listthere is also a San Francisco (M.D. Neuro) and Urology match that exist separate from the main NRMP match, but are still open to D.O. students for application. The AOA and NRMP matches are currently separated by about a monthAOA releases its results in February and the NRMP in Marchwith coinciding possibilities to scramble to open spots at the end of each of these matches respectively.
Initially students could match in each of these systems without restriction. This led to the entry of double matchinga student who would match in both an AOA and an ACGME program. Since the Match is a contract between the student and the program, this caused upheaval when students broke one contract to accept another. The reasons for who chose what program variedgeographic location of one program over another, quality of the two acceptances, and so on. The AOA was filling its internships at a rate of 86% up to the year 1999. Enter the year 2000, the AOA and the NMRP, in an effort to stop these breaches of contracts, enacted rules that withdrew a D.O. student from the NRMP once they were acceptance into one of their ranked choices in the AOA matchwhich also gives the student 30 days to sign the contract before possibly being dropped from the matched program, and further being prevented from taking ANY other AOA-approved training program for one (1) year. By 2003 the number of AOA funded/filled internships dropped to 60% . Today 50% or more of our students are entering ACMGE programs without applying to AOA internships.
The theory of a Combined Match is to take both matches, the AOA and the NMRP, and merge them into a single all student matchthe goal being, to ultimately allow students to rank AOA and ACGME programs simultaneously. This will accomplish two things. First it will maintain the AOA and ACGMEs original intent of the 2000 decisionprevent double acceptances and contract breaches. Second, it will allow students the freedom to rank programs, both AOA and ACGME, in an order that best suits their educational needs. In the end, we believe that this logistical change is in keeping with the original spirit of the match conceptwhich is to efficiently connect students and programs, and decrease student stress during the application process.
