School of Medicine

Most Grads Staying In Louisiana Enter LSU Health Residency Programs

Leslie Capo, Director of Information Services

Match Day figures revealed that 86 percent of the graduating LSU Health New Orleans medical students who are staying in-state will enter an LSU Health residency program. Nearly 50% of the LSU Health New Orleans graduates chose to remain in Louisiana to complete their medical training (48 percent, or 84 of 174 participating in the National Resident Match Program this year). LSU Health New Orleans School of Medicine residency programs in New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Lafayette, Lake Charles and Bogalusa will accept 222 new residents.

“The fact that nearly 90% of our graduates remaining in Louisiana chose an LSU Health residency program demonstrates their high degree of confidence in the quality of our training programs,” notes Dr. Steve Nelson, Interim Chancellor of LSU Health New Orleans. “Though our outstanding students have many options, we are proud that they elected to stay home, with us. LSU Health New Orleans continues to supply the physicians who take care of the people of Louisiana.”

The percentage of LSU Health New Orleans medical graduates going into primary care is 54% this 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.

“This is a day that our senior students have anticipated for years,” says Dr. Richard DiCarlo, LSU Health New Orleans School of Medicine Interim Dean. “The Match process has become increasingly competitive, but our students did very well. That is a testament to the quality of our students, the excellence of our faculty, and the dedication of our leaders in the Offices of Student Affairs and Medical Education.”

Of the 73 accredited residency and fellowship programs under LSU Health New Orleans, 35 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 Duke, Vanderbilt, Columbia, Georgetown, the University of Alabama-Birmingham, the University of California San Francisco, and Brown University, 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 this morning where they "matched" and where they will spend their years of residency training. National studies have found that many 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 will begin on July 1, 2022.