LSU Health New Orleans Medical Grads Forego Match Day Ceremony to Support Response to COVD-19 Pandemic
“The current public health crisis emphasizes the critical value of medical and graduate medical education and training,” notes Dr. Larry Hollier, Chancellor of LSU Health New Orleans. “These soon-to-be physicians will play a large role in the delivery of medical care here in Louisiana. Since we had to suspend their clinical duties to conserve personal protective equipment and reduce their chances or being exposed to the virus, we are working to organize other ways for them to contribute to the response to the pandemic. These include telephone screening of patients and providing support to our faculty physicians and residents on duty working long hours in our partner hospitals.”
The percentage of LSU Health New Orleans medical graduates going into primary care is 56% this year, up from 54% last year. Primary Care specialties include Family Practice, Internal Medicine, Medicine-Preliminary, Medicine-Primary, Obstetrics-Gynecology, Pediatrics, and Medicine-Pediatrics. OB-GYN is not always included in primary care data; however, in some Louisiana communities the only physician is an OB-GYN.“Match Day this year was an entirely different experience for our fourth-year medical students and their families,” adds Dr. Steve Nelson, Dean of the School of Medicine at LSU Health New Orleans. “The excitement of reaching this milestone has been tempered by this unprecedented health crisis. We could not hold a ceremony, so our medical graduates received their letters electronically. They privately celebrated the news of where they will go to complete their medical training, and we are pleased that about half of them will stay right here at home.”
Of the 66 accredited residency and fellowship programs under LSU Health New Orleans, 36 participated in the Main NRMP Match whose results were released today. They are Anesthesiology, Child Neurology, Dermatology, Emergency Medicine (Baton Rouge and New Orleans), Family Practice (Kenner, Bogalusa, Lafayette and Lake Charles), Internal Medicine (Baton Rouge, Lafayette and New Orleans), Interventional Radiology, Medicine-Preliminary (Baton Rouge, Lafayette and New Orleans), Neurological Surgery, Neurology, Obstetrics-Gynecology (Baton Rouge and New Orleans), Orthopedic Surgery, Otolaryngology, Pathology, Pediatrics, Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Plastic Surgery, Psychiatry (Baton Rouge and New Orleans), Radiology, General Surgery, Surgery-Preliminary, Vascular Surgery, Medicine-Pediatrics, Medicine-Emergency Medicine and Pediatrics-Emergency Medicine.“LSU Health New Orleans medical graduates are in demand.” adds Dr. Cathy Lazarus, Associate Dean for Student Affairs at LSU Health New Orleans School of Medicine. “Those who pursue different experiences at this stage of their training are going to some of the most prestigious out-of-state programs. Many of them will bring the benefits of these experiences home when they return to Louisiana to practice.”
LSU Health New Orleans medical graduates who matched training programs in other states will be going to such highly regarded programs as Johns Hopkins, Vanderbilt, Emory University, the University of Alabama-Birmingham, Washington University in St. Louis, University of Michigan, and Duke, among others.The Match, conducted annually by the National Resident Matching Program (NRMP), is the primary system that matches applicants to residency programs with available positions at U.S. teaching hospitals and academic health centers. The choices of the students are entered into a software program as are the choices of the institutions with residency programs. All U.S. graduating medical students found out at the same time today where they "matched" and where they will spend their years of residency training. National studies have found that a high number of physicians set up their permanent practices in the areas where they have completed their residency programs, but Louisiana is different from many states. A high percentage of LSU Health medical graduates come home to establish their practices. The vast majority of physicians providing care to the citizens of Louisiana are LSU Health-trained doctors.
The National Residency Matching Program was established in 1952 to provide an orderly and fair mechanism to match the preferences of applicants for U.S. residency positions with residency program choices of applicants. The program provides a common time for the announcement of the appointments, as well as an agreement for programs and applicants to honor the commitment to offer and accept an appointment if a match results.Residency programs are scheduled to begin on July 1, 2020.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________ LSU Health Sciences Center New Orleans (LSU Health New Orleans) educates Louisiana's health care professionals. The state's health sciences university leader, LSU Health New Orleans includes a School of Medicine, the state's only School of Dentistry, Louisiana's only public School of Public Health, and Schools of Allied Health Professions, Nursing, and Graduate Studies. LSU Health New Orleans faculty take care of patients in public and private hospitals and clinics throughout the region. In the vanguard of biosciences research, the LSU Health New Orleans research enterprise generates jobs and enormous annual economic impact. LSU Health New Orleans faculty have made lifesaving discoveries and continue to work to prevent, advance treatment, or cure disease. To learn more, visit http://www.lsuhsc.edu, http://www.twitter.com/LSUHealthNO, or http://www.facebook.com/LSUHSC.
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Leslie Capo
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