Meet our #Match2021

April 6, 2021

The thrid week of March is an emotional week for those in medical education. It's the week that medical students find out if and where they are going to residency, the culmanation of all of their hard work and effort in medical school. The completion of residency allows for students to finish their education and practice as an attending physician in their respective speciality. Our studnets placing in residency allows for them to achieve their career goals and also serve the rural communities they care about-- something that's pretty important to us! 

Running a rural medical education program is a unique opportunity to build up the rural workforce, but it also comes with some common questions from our hospital partners and prospective students: "Does this program mean students have to do a rural residency?", "Does this program only make family medicine doctors?", "Do our students only go onto practice in Michigan?". The answer to all of these questions is no. The majority of residencies are in urban communities which means that many students place in urban residencies. Decades of data shows that our students go on to become doctors in a variety of specialities specifically in Emergency Medicine, Surgery and OBGYN. At the same, time we do have a fair number of studnets who do stay local and do serve as primary care doctors. An outcome that is having a positive impact on the rural workforce and rural healthcare. Finally, while we love Michigan, rural communities all over the country need doctors and our students go onto to serve those areas as well! 

We are proud of everything our students accomplish and this year was no exception. The students who matched into a residency from our program did an outstanding job! The top placements this year were emergency medicine, surgery and family medicine. Half of our students are staying in Michigan, over 20% are serving in primary care fields, and many are staying very close to home! Our students this year prove that there are so many opportunities for students who want to train rural and serve rural. Even in the midst of a pandemic. 

Graduation is now just a few weeks away and it is time to say "see you later" to our students. We get to watch as they finsih residency, build practices, and change the future of rural medicine for the coming generations. They are going to do this by practicing all types of medicine and finsihing their training in all types of geographies. Congratulations Class of 2021! We could not be prouder.