It’s Match Day 2010 — the inevitable Day of Reckoning for all of that hard work in medical school as the nations’ med school grads jockey for their first choices in postgraduate (residency) slots. As expected, the vast majority of the country’s graduating class is opting for careers outside of primary care (FP, IM, Peds.), but the gains made within primary care do provide a small scintilla of hope cloaked inside the dark chasm of the realities of the medical discipline’s issues after residency training.

The numbers do not lie: FP slots saw an increase of positions filled of 9 percent (IM, of 3%; and Peds., of 2%). That’s tremendous news for FP, as the primary care specialty saw a 7 percent decline in slots filled last year. Too early to hope for a trend? Depends on how you take the results. As an eternal optimist, I like the glass-half-full option, as even in the darkest of times to consider going into medicine in general, approximately 3000 more U.S. fourth year students will be matching this year than last — maintaining the nobility of the profession. | LINK

Related Posts Within Doctor Pundit:

1. Study: Medical School Debt Biggest Reason for Primary Care Fill Failure Rate Don’t believe all of the hype about the “challenges” and...
2. New Options for Increasing Rolls of Primary Care Doctors in the Age of Reform A new twist on old news. While practically everyone with...
3. A Medical Student’s Take on the Health of the Primary Care Model A great piece by a journalist-med student in her senior...
4. Primary Care Makes Guarded Gains in Match Day ’11 Match Day 2011 has come and gone, and although my...
5. Primary Care Struggles to Stay Apace of Care Demand Amid Universal Coverage in Mass. The predicted efflux of primary care physicians in Massachusetts, as...