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2023 appointment year was the largest in the 38-year history of the NRMP’s Specialties Matching Service®

The National Resident Matching Program® (NRMP) has released Results and Data Specialties Matching Service, 2023 Appointment Year for Fellowship Matches conducted by the NRMP’s Specialties Matching Service (SMS®).  The report shows 13,919 active applicants competed for 13,365 fellowship positions offered by 5,734 programs.   

The NRMP formalized its Specialties Matching Service in 1984 and conducted its first fellowship Match that year for Colon & Rectal Surgery. Currently, the Specialties Matching Service has grown to include 73 subspecialties in 20 separate fellowship Matches occurring year-round.  

“We are so proud of the NRMP’s long-standing history providing fellowship matching as physicians move from their residency training into their subspecialty training,” said NRMP President and CEO Donna L. Lamb, DHSc, MBA, BSN. “We were especially pleased this year to see the increase in the number of matched applicants among all applicant types.”

New Specialties. There were two new subspecialties that joined the Specialties Matching Service for the 2023 appointment year. Addiction Medicine and Addiction Psychiatry joined the newly combined Medicine and Pediatric Specialties Match. This is the first year that the former Medical Specialties Matching Program, Pediatric Specialties, and Adolescent Medicine Fellowship Matches combined into the ‘Medicine and Pediatric Specialties Match’, which now includes 39 subspecialties and makes it the largest Fellowship Match NRMP conducts. Headache Medicine also returned to the Match for this appointment year after last participating for the 2018 appointment year.

Growth of the SMS. Between 2019 and 2023, the number of active applicants, those applicants who submitted a certified rank order list of programs, increased 21.4 percent from 11,467 to 13,919. During the same five-year period, U.S. medical school graduates had the largest increase in applicant numbers with U.S. MD graduates, increasing by 990 applicants, and U.S. DO graduates, increasing by 809 applicants. The number of active U.S. citizen international medical graduate (IMG) applicants increased by 331 and the number of active non-U.S. citizen IMG applicants increased by 340 between 2019 and 2023.

Program Highlights.

  • Of the 13,365 positions offered through the SMS, 11,548 (86.4%) were filled.
  • Of the 5,734 participating programs, 4,517 (78.8%) filled all positions.

Specialty Highlights.

  • Of the 73 participating subspecialties, 33 filled 90 percent or more of the positions offered; 27 filled less than 75 percent.
  • Among specialties offering at least 30 total positions, the five with the highest percentages filled by U.S. MD graduates include Gynecologic Oncology (92.3%), Hand Surgery (91.5%), Pediatric Surgery (89.8%), Reproductive Endocrinology (87.5%), and Female Pelvic Medicine and Reconstructive Surgery (86.9%).  
  • Among specialties offering at least 30 total positions, the five with the highest percentages filled by U.S. DO graduates include Sports Medicine (44.0%), Headache Medicine (27.8%), Pain Medicine (27.7%), Critical Care Medicine (21.0%), and Addiction Medicine (20.6%).
  • Among the specialties offering at least 30 positions, the five with the highest percentages of positions filled by U.S. citizen IMGs are Addiction Psychiatry (25.3%), Critical Care Medicine (22.7%), Nephrology (21.4%), Addiction Medicine (21.3%), and Sleep Medicine (19.1%).
  • Among the specialties offering at least 30 positions, the five with the highest percentages of positions filled by non-U.S. citizen IMGs are Endocrinology, Diabetes, and Metabolism (40.8%), Medical Genetics (38.1%), Nephrology (33.7%), Pediatric Rheumatology (29.6%), and Cardiovascular Disease (28.8%).

Applicant Highlights.

  • Of the 13,919 active applicants who participated in at least one Fellowship Match, 11,548 (83.0%) obtained positions, 470 more than last year.
  • The number of matched U.S. MD graduates was 6,557, an increase of 163 over last year.
  • The number of matched U.S. DO graduates was 1,738, an increase of 160 over last year.
  • The number of matched U.S. citizen IMGs was 1,219, an increase of 42 over last year.
  • The number of matched non-U.S. citizen IMGs was 1,992, an increase of 97 over last year.
  • The number of fellowship positions per active U.S. MD graduate was 1.83 for the 2023 appointment year, 0.07 more than last year. The ratio of fellowship positions to all active applicants was 0.96 for the 2023 appointment year, 0.03 more than last year.

View the Match report.

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About NRMP

The National Resident Matching Program® (NRMP®) is a private, non-profit organization established in 1953 to oversee The Match® at the request of medical students to provide an orderly and fair mechanism for matching the preferences of applicants for U.S. residency positions with the preferences of residency program directors. In addition to the annual Main Residency Match® for more than 48,000 registrants, the NRMP also conducts Fellowship Matches for more than 70 subspecialties through its Specialties Matching Service® (SMS®).

To schedule an interview with NRMP President and CEO Donna L. Lamb, DHSc, contact media@nrmp.org.

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