Until last week, Muhammad Qureshi’s dream of becoming a practising American doctor was on track. Yet by the time Match Day itself rolled around, Qureshi was one of more than 4000 who applied for a first-year residency spot in America, and missed out. Those who studied internationally were statistically far more likely to count amongst that number in 2021.

Though more than 42,000 medical graduates rode the residency rollercoaster this last week, relatively few have heard the crazy story behind the very first Match Day, in 1952. Involving ‘exploding’ residency offers, two Nobel Prize-winning game theory economists, and a med student movement led by a New Orleans-born ex-carrier fighter pilot, it’s a tale worth knowing.

Though few of this year’s medical residency applicants were even alive in 1992, it is emerging as an increasingly pivotal year in recent history. Though not as well recognized by pop culture—or even recent medical history—the year also marked the end of an old era in American residency matching, and the start of a new one.

After clunky beginnings nearly 40 years ago, medical gaming has been carving out a growing niche within medicine. Recent steps forward in virtual (VR) and augmented reality (AR), along with the increasing shift to mobile devices over the last decade, have helped fuel a rise brought into even sharper relief by in-person Covid-19 restrictions.

On February 11, it was announced that the COMLEX-USA Level 2-PE was “postponed indefinitely.” With the end of the USMLE Step 2 CS exam just two weeks before, American medical education now finds itself in an uncertain new era of standardized clinical skills testing.

Though study materials, highlighter pens, and empty coffee cups cover the table, medical students around the world are rarely afforded …

Early last March, Elif Yakut, a 29-year-old medical graduate from Turkey, traveled to Philadelphia to complete her United States Medical Licensing Examination (USMLE) Step 2 Clinical Skills assessment.

There are more than 120,000 medical students in the United States.  Like most others studying medicine around the world, they have …

Like more than 222,000 of her fellow Americans, a 75-year-old lung cancer survivor from New Jersey tested positive for COVID-19 …