{"id":203454,"date":"2026-03-24T04:13:13","date_gmt":"2026-03-24T04:13:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/203454\/"},"modified":"2026-03-24T04:13:13","modified_gmt":"2026-03-24T04:13:13","slug":"match-day-2026-almost-half-of-fsu-m-d-class-of-2026-matched-in-florida-for-residency","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/203454\/","title":{"rendered":"Match Day 2026: Almost half of\u00a0FSU\u00a0M.D. Class of 2026\u00a0matched in Florida for residency\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

At\u00a0this year\u2019s Florida State University College of Medicine Match Day, almost half of the\u00a0college\u2019s\u00a0M.D. Class of 2026\u00a0learned that they\u00a0will be staying in Florida\u00a0for\u00a0their residencies, the next\u00a0step\u00a0of their medical education\u00a0that culminates in board certification in their chosen specialty and a license to practice medicine.<\/p>\n

Of the 115 students\u00a0who\u00a0participated\u00a0in the National Resident Matching Program, the primary system\u00a0matching\u00a0applicants to residency programs with\u00a0available positions\u00a0at U.S. teaching hospitals, 55\u00a0(47%)\u00a0matched in Florida.<\/p>\n

\u201cHaving almost half of our class stay in Florida bodes well for the future as Florida faces a serious physician shortage,\u201d College of Medicine Dean Alma B. Littles, M.D., said. \u201cResearch has shown that\u00a0almost half of all\u00a0physicians establish their practices within 50 miles of where they completed their residencies.\u201d<\/p>\n

Littles herself is evidence of the trend. The Gadsden County native completed a family medicine residency at\u00a0what is now\u00a0Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare in 1989 and opened her practice in her home county the same year.<\/p>\n

\"AKimberly Keenan beams as she shows off her letter saying she matched in family medicine at Ascension St. Vincent Medical Center in Jacksonville. In the background, College of Medicine Dean Alma B. Littles, M.D., speaks. (Photo by Colin Hackley for the FSU College of Medicine.) <\/p>\n

Match Day,\u00a0held\u00a0the third Friday in March each year, is when graduating medical students across the country receive their match information.<\/p>\n

A little over 31%, 39\u00a0students, matched in another\u00a0state in the\u00a0Southeast, either Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas,\u00a0Virginia\u00a0or West Virginia. When combined,\u00a094\u00a0of the 115, or\u00a0almost 81%, are staying in the Southeast.<\/p>\n

In addition, four students\u00a0headed for military service\u00a0\u2014\u00a0two in the Air Force and one each in the Army and Navy\u00a0\u2014\u00a0matched with military\u00a0hospitals,\u00a0and one\u00a0matched\u00a0in urology through a specialty match administered by the American Urological Association.\u00a0One\u00a0graduating\u00a0student deferred participating in the match\u00a0to complete a research\u00a0year.<\/p>\n

Almost one-quarter of the\u00a0120 students\u00a0(23%)\u00a0who\u00a0participated\u00a0in one of the match programs, 28 students,\u00a0did so\u00a0in internal medicine.\u00a0Psychiatry was second with 15\u00a0(12%); pediatrics and surgery, both general and\u00a0preliminary,\u00a0each\u00a0had 13 matches (11%);\u00a0family medicine had\u00a012 matches (10%);\u00a0obstetrics\u00a0and gynecology, orthopedic surgery, physical medicine and rehabilitation, and diagnostic radiology\u00a0each had four matches (3%).<\/p>\n

Transitional programs,\u00a0otolaryngology, dermatology, child neurology, internal medicine\/psychiatry, radiation\u00a0oncology\u00a0and urology\u00a0all had one or two matches.<\/p>\n

The number of students\u00a0who\u00a0matched\u00a0in\u00a0primary care specialties,\u00a0excluding\u00a0obstetrics and gynecology, was 54 (47%). If\u00a0ob\/gyn\u00a0is included, the number rises to 59 (51%). Currently, the Association of American Colleges\u00a0does not count\u00a0ob\/gyn as a primary care specialty,\u00a0but\u00a0many medical educators\u00a0think if should be included.<\/p>\n

Match Day is a festive affair at Ruby Diamond Concert Hall, with the dean\u00a0giving a brief welcome to\u00a0the students, their\u00a0families\u00a0and friends, then calling on the graduating class members to \u201copen your envelopes.\u201d<\/p>\n

The next few minutes were noisy pandemonium, with whooping, hollering, high-fiving and happy snapshots while showing off their matches. Students then began taking to the stage with their regional campus classmates, sharing their results while beaming loved ones stood alongside.<\/p>\n

\"AAlycia \u201cAly\u201d Savage, president of the FSU College of Medicine Class of 2026, addresses the crowd at match Day. (Bob Thomas\/FSU College of Medicine) <\/p>\n

Class President Alycia \u201cAly\u201d Savage\u00a0then\u00a0addressed the crowd.\u00a0A 10-year veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps, she shared with her classmates a personal story of her disappointment on\u00a0a previous\u00a0\u201cselection\u00a0day\u201d when she\u00a0had completed flight training and learned what\u00a0aircraft\u00a0she would be piloting.\u00a0She was assigned to her\u00a0last choice.<\/p>\n

\u201cI did not\u00a0want to\u00a0fly\u00a0the MV-22 Osprey. But the Osprey,\u00a0an aircraft\u00a0that combines the vertical takeoff and landing of a helicopter with the speed and range of a turboprop plane,\u00a0wanted me,\u201d she said.\u00a0\u201cMore accurately, the Marine Corps needed Osprey pilots.\u201d<\/p>\n

She felt crushed\u00a0that day but looking back, she said she\u00a0couldn\u2019t\u00a0imagine her life any other way.\u00a0\u201cI became who I am because of a path I\u00a0didn\u2019t\u00a0choose.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo\u00a0whatever you felt today when you opened your envelope,\u00a0feel\u00a0it fully. Celebrate. Cry. Laugh. Feel the relief, the excitement. If needed, feel\u00a0the disappointment,\u00a0fear\u00a0or uncertainty. And then, get to work,\u201d said Savage, who will be staying in Tallahassee for an\u00a0FSU College of Medicine\/TMH general surgery residency.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe may not always control where we land, but we absolutely control how we lead, how we serve, and who we become once we get there. Class of 2026, I am so incredibly proud of you,\u201d\u00a0she\u00a0said.\u00a0\u201cI cannot wait to walk across this graduation stage with you.\u201d<\/p>\n

In her closing remarks, Littles reminded the students\u00a0they were \u201calmost to the mountaintop.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cEight weeks from tomorrow, we\u2019ll gather again in this same place and make it official,\u201d she said. \u201cWhat a day it will be for all of us! See you then.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"AA chart illustrating how many students in the FSU College of Medicine M.D. Class of 2026 matched in Florida, elsewhere in the Southeast, and in other regions of the country. (College of Medicine Creative Services)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At\u00a0this year\u2019s Florida State University College of Medicine Match Day, almost half of the\u00a0college\u2019s\u00a0M.D. Class of 2026\u00a0learned that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":203455,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[71202,92313,232,234,233],"class_list":["post-203454","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tallahassee","tag-college-of-medicine","tag-match-day","tag-tallahassee","tag-tallahassee-headlines","tag-tallahassee-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203454","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=203454"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203454\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/203455"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=203454"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=203454"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=203454"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}