Internal Medicine

Internal Medicine Residency Match

This page contains condensed information and links to important books for a successful match. Please read carefully as you will find most of the information here useful in your journey.


What is internal medicine residency?

Internal Medicine is a discipline encompassing the study and practice of health promotion, disease prevention, diagnosis, care, and treatment of human beings from adolescence to old age, during health and all stages of illness. In addition to General Internal Medicine (inpatient and continuity clinics), it includes training in the following subspecialties of internal medicine: Cardiology, Critical care, Endocrinology, Hematology, Gastroenterology, Geriatric medicine, Infectious diseases, Nephrology, Oncology, Pulmonary disease, and Rheumatology either through core clinical rotations or through electives you choose.


How many years is internal medicine residency?

Internal medicine residency is composed of 3 years. In whatever rotation you are in, there will be direct supervision from an attending in that department in addition to your senior residents and you will have lectures in all specialties usually held on scheduled basis for all the residency program.The first year, also called internship, the PGY-1 resident is called an intern. The intern will be learning mainly how to follow up patients, prescribing medications, writing progress notes and discharging the patients. He also helps the senior residents doing new admissions. The PGY-2 resident will carry more responsibility but less notes to write. He will be doing the majority of the hospital admissions, rounding with the social workers and discussing with the case managers patient-related issues. The PGY-3 resident will have more electives but also will have more responsibilities in certain rotations like the ICU, CCU and as an in-house resident where he will be doing admissions and running the codes in the hospital. The third year resident will have more free time to study for the board exams.


What are the average scores for AMGs and IMGs who matched in Internal Medicine?


The average scores for AMGs who matched in Internal Medicine in USMLE step 1 and 2 CK are 226 and 237 repectively.



For IMGs who matched in Internal Medicine the average scores in USMLE step 1 and 2 CK are 225 and 228 respectively.




What are the match statistics for Internal Medicine?


About 55% of positions offered in the match go to AMGs and about 45% of positions go to IMGs. About 96% of AMGs who apply do match and about 45% of IMGs who apply do successfuly match , as well as 20% who apply to the post match SOAP in IM also get positions.

What should AMGs do to increase their chances to match in Internal Medicine?

During your medical school rotations try to schedule your electives mainly in internal medicine (and specialties) to get touch-base with the IM attendings so you will get LORs fom them later on. Also you need a book to impress the faculty you are interacting with and increase your knowledge at the same time. Most people who match will have the IM Essentials Text . During interviews, at most of them, you will be asked about internal medicine books you have read, and having the answer ready, as above, will further push your ranking up in the NRMP match. This book is published by the ACP, no kidding!

Also special for AMGs this book/ebook about Internal Medicine Match Criteria

What should IMGs do to increase their chances in matching in Internal Medicine?

Doing observerships and getting US LORs is an important part of your ERAS application where program directors will be looking for such information.

We also strongly recommend that you have the same book as AMGs in your shelf, namely the "IM Essentials text" as above. Applicants are also differentiated based on the knowledge and their interest in the domain they are applying to, so be ready.

Also, IMGs should apply to the same programs where we helped their peers to match in the previous years, these programs are found in many states as described in the below mentioned list. This is the full list of the IMG friendly internal medicine residency programs with full selection criteria and requirements in an eBook pdf form which you can easily download it to your computer or any other device from: Internal Medicine IMG Friendly Residency Programs List


I matched already, what should I do to survive internal medicine residency?



To survive internal medicine residency you will need to get some books which are needed to build up your knowlegde and other books to help you pass the inservice and board exams. These books are traditionally recommended by program directors and widely used by residents, you can find them here: Internal Medicine Recommended Books