The Integrity of the NRMP Match

The Process

Beginning in the early fall of each year, residency training candidates undertake the challenging task of seeking the program where they will begin their residency training the following July. Concurrently, graduate medical education program directors begin to review applications and to interview and evaluate candidates for their available residency positions.

What is the Match?

The NRMP Match was created to provide a mechanism whereby program directors and applicants could consider all their options before making final commitments, and to establish a uniform date and time for the announcement of residency position appointments. After completing their respective evaluations, programs and applicants each prepare a final listing of their choices in preference order, which are then used by the Match to place applicants into residency positions. The success of the Match depends on a high level of trust among all participants in the Matching Program.

What is a "Match Violation"?

The NRMP has established principles and policies to guide participants (programs and applicants) through the Match application and rank ordering process. Those policies are the foundation of a fair, open, and orderly Match process. The failure of a Match participant to comply with one or more of those policies is called a Match violation. The NRMP's Policy and Procedures on the Reporting, Investigation, and Disposition of Violations of NRMP Agreements governs the NRMP's handling of match violations.

Match violations negatively affect all participants in the Match. For example, the consequences of Match violations can result in:

• An applicant being pressured by a program director to reveal the program's place on the applicant's rank order list.
• A program director being notified that a matched applicant will be a "no show" and finding that all other applicants matched elsewhere.
• An international medical graduate being pressured by (or pressuring) a program director to sign a contract before Match Day.
• A student affairs dean counseling an unmatched student who believed a program director's "promise" that he/she would be ranked first.
• A matched applicant who could have matched to a more preferred program that now has an open position because of an applicant "no show".

Some match violations are committed with full awareness of the fact that the action is a violation; however, in many cases the violation occurs because the participants are unaware that the action is a violation of the Match Participation Agreement.

NRMP Statement on Professionalism

The National Resident Matching Program maintains the highest professional standards in the conduct of the Match and in its interactions with all Match participants: applicants, program directors, institutional officials, and student affairs deans. The NRMP expects all Match participants to conduct their affairs related to the Match in an ethical and professionally responsible manner. Read the NRMP Statement on Professionalism.

Applicants are expected to adhere to the terms of the Match Participation Agreement in their search for a residency position. Program directors, institutional officials, and deans of student affairs must honor the conditions of their agreement with the NRMP and also respect the right of applicants to freely investigate program options prior to submission of a final rank order list.

The policies and procedures of the NRMP Match process are available on the NRMP Web site in the Match Participation Agreement. When registering for the Match, all participants certify they agree to conduct their affairs related to the Match consistent with those policies. Participants can avoid engaging in a Match violation through the observance of practices that respect the right of programs and applicants to determine their selections in the absence of unwarranted pressure and to adhere to the highest ethical principles in all interactions with other Match participants.

Updated 09/20/2006