The 2012 Family Medicine Match Results - Future of Family Medicine Match Day Coverage

Match Day is once again upon the world of medicine, and we are eager to outline and track updates to 2012 match results for Family Medicine. While the Family Medicine Match continues to increase for the 3rd year in a row, gains in the number of positions filled and the percentage fill rate are marginal this year.

NRMP Match Results: 2,611 of 2,764 Family Medicine PGY-1 positions were filled in the match, making for a 94.5% fill rate, which is 0.1% higher than last year's 94.4% match rate when 2,576 of the 2,730 available positions were filled. 48.3% of PGY-1 spots were filled by US medical graduates, marking a 0.1% increase from 2011.

2000-2012 NRMP Family Medicine Match Results (Source: AAFP)

Regarding the NRMP match, AAFP President Glen Stream commented in the AAFP News Now:
"Family medicine's 2012 Match numbers barely increased from 2011 numbers and certainly did not indicate enough growth in the specialty to keep up with America's increasing demand for family physicians. Family medicine is the foundation of improved health care in this country. We must continue to promote programs that generate and sustain student interest in the specialty."

The AAFP president identifies several priorities that need to be addressed to increase the family medicine match and ultimately sustain (and hopefully increase) access to health care services  across the nation: "Several things need to happen, including narrowing the income gap between primary care and other physician specialists, reforming the medical education infrastructure, changing the system that funds graduate medical education, and increasing support for programs such as the National Health Service Corps and health professions training programs."

Also read AAFP News Now coverage of Match Day at: Family Medicine Match Rate Increases Slightly.

The Osteopathic Match: Family medicine continues to be the largest matched specialty among osteopathic medical students which announced the results of the 2012 osteopathic match in mid-February. Family medicine saw a 16% increase from last year, and was the largest matched specialty with 433 positions filled. Last year family medicine also was the largest matched specialty with 373 positions filled. This represents an increase of 60 spots for 2012.

Last years family medicine match results: 2,576 family medicine positions were filled out of 2,730: a fill rate of 94.4% - impressive when taking into account that 100 more positions were available for family medicine vs. 2010. Of the 2,576 candidates who selected family medicine, 1,317 of them were U.S. medical school graduates - this as a result of 133 more US Grads choosing family medicine, or an increase of 8.4% in 2011.

See www.aafp.org/match for more detailed match analysis. Follow AAFP detailed analyses at: http://www.aafp.org/online/en/home/residents/match/summary.html also!