Anesthesiology Still Hot, Family Med Is Not

About 94% of the largest-ever pool of applicants learned on this year’s Match Day, March 21, that they had been accepted to a residency program that would launch their medical careers.

Some specialties — anesthesiology and dermatology — were as popular and competitive as ever among senior medical and osteopathic students, while others, like pediatrics and family medicine, continued to experience a drop-off in interest. 

Despite increasing barriers to training for and providing abortions, ob/gyn residency slots were almost entirely filled for the second year in a row. Of the 1587 available, all but one were filled, the majority by US MD seniors. “The overwhelming interest in the specialty reflects the passion and dedication of medical students eager to serve the reproductive and general health needs of patients across the country,” said Sandra E. Brooks, MD, MBA, chief executive officer of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, in a statement.

Another bright spot: psychiatry. The number of positions and matches in psychiatry have been increasing over the last few years, in part due to a push by the specialty. This year, 2380 of the 2388 residency slots were filled. There were 127 more positions and 131 more matches than in 2024.

More than 52,498 applicants registered for the 2025 Match, the program administered by the nonprofit National Resident Matching Program (NRMP). Of those, 47,208 actively competed for 43,237 positions, according to data released by NRMP. Both the number of applicants and the number of overall residency positions increased 4% from 2024.

There were no real surprises in the 2025 Match data, said Bryan Carmody, MD, MPH, a pediatric nephrologist who takes deep dives into medical education on his blog.

The decline in interest in pediatrics has “been slow and steady” over the last decade, Carmody told Medscape Medical News.

Of the 3135 pediatric residency slots available, 2988 were filled, with just under half being filled by US MD seniors. For emergency medicine, 3003 of the 3068 available positions were filled, with only 1377 taken by US MD seniors.

US MD seniors are the largest category of Match applicants, accounting for 20,368 active applicants in 2025. American osteopathic medicine seniors, American graduates of international medical schools, and non-American international medical school graduates (IMGs) make up the remainder of the Match applicants.

Most of the available residency slots involved primary care, with 20,300 positions in internal medicine, pediatrics, and family medicine available in 2025 ─ an increase of 877 positions over 2024 and a new high, according to NRMP.

The highest match was for internal medicine, with almost 97% of the 11,750 positions being filled. While internal medicine is the largest training specialty, primary care-focused internal medicine positions declined to 411 offered positions, continuing a 5-year decline, according to the American College of Physicians (ACP).

A third of the IM residency slots were filled by non-US IMGs, said ACP in a statement. That figure “confirmed the essential role of IMGs in serving US healthcare needs,” said Davoren Chick, MD, the ACP’s chief learning officer. IMGs “are mission critical” to providing health care in America, both during training and “also following training through their disproportionately large role in meeting the needs of medically underserved populations throughout the nation,” said Chick. 

Family medicine saw its Match rate decline from 88% in 2024 to 85% in 2025. The NRMP said the decline was largely due to the increase of 144 family medicine positions. But Carmody noted that US MD seniors have had a declining interest in family medicine “for a long time and there just aren’t enough other applicants to fill those holes.” 

Not surprisingly, medical students tend to gravitate towards better-compensated specialties — like surgery, radiology, and anesthesiology. 

“Doctors are human beings, and like other human beings, they prefer to have more money rather than less,” said Carmody.

Applicants who did not get a position through the Match were eligible to try for an unfilled slot through the NRMP’s Match Week Supplemental Offer and Acceptance Program. The NRMP said that 2521 positions were available. 

Alicia Ault is a Saint Petersburg, Florida-based freelance journalist whose work has appeared in many health and science publications, including Smithsonian.com. You can find her on X @aliciaault and on Bluesky @aliciaault.bsky.social.