Match Day data showed that medical students are less interested in emergency medicine now than during the pandemic.
Here’s what happened.
What happened? The Washington Post reported that the number of medical students interested in emergency medicine is declining, as the National Resident Matching Program data found a 26% decline from 2021 to 2023.
In 2021, 3,734 students applied for emergency medicine, and this year only 2,765 applied.
What’s been said? “When students see us super burned out and dealing with a health care system that treats the emergency department like a release valve, they see the toll it takes on us,” Jessica Adkins Murphy, president of the Emergency Medicine Residents Association, said, per the Post.
Within the Student Doctor Network, many current doctors have been warning students since 2021 to not go into the field.
“Let me be very clear. Going into Emergency Medicine is a mistake for 90% of applicants at this time,” an emergency medicine resident wrote on the group’s message board. “The job market is a disaster and those individuals who would casually dismiss this are ignorant of the dynamics at play.”
Details: The New York Times reported in 2021 that while medicals schools had an increasing number of graduates, residency programs were having a hard time finding open spots for all graduates.
What does this mean? The Washington Post reported that while there is a decline in interest in emergency medicine among students, the U.S. is not facing a shortage of doctors to work in the ER.
Although the 2021 report detailed that there were too many students and too few residency programs, some believe that the issue will level out.
“With the current state of health care right now, there are more and more people leaving medicine and that may have us revisit oversupply,” president of the American College of Emergency Physicians, Chris Kang said.