1.4M
DRMed school’s biggest bottleneck 🎓
These are the 2025 residency match rates for some competitive specialties:
• Dermatology — 52.8%
• Plastic Surgery — 55.8%
• Neurosurgery — 56.3%
• Orthopedic Surgery — 58.4%
• Vascular Surgery — 59.3%
• Anesthesia — 59.8%
• Radiology — 60.1%
• ENT — 71.4%
Meanwhile…
Thousands of residency spots in core specialties went unfilled:
• Family Medicine — 805 positions
• Internal Medicine — 357 positions
• Pediatrics — 147 positions
So what’s going on?
Here are a few structural problems with the match:
• Step 1 is now pass/fail, making objective comparison harder and increasing reliance on prestige, connections, and subjective metrics.
• Application inflation — students apply to dozens or even hundreds of programs, creating massive review burdens and higher costs.
• Programs get flooded with applications (think 500 applicants for 4 derm spots).
• Match Day happens in mid-March, giving little time to plan a cross-country move before July.
• No negotiation — you match to one program and that’s it.
The result: massive competition in some fields while others struggle to fill positions.
The system clearly needs reform.
What changes would actually fix it?
👇 Curious what you think!
@drbullockderm
