Texas is keeping pace with long-term physician workforce goals, judging by the survey analysis conducted by the Texas Medical Association, as 99.4% of the estimated 2,350 Texas medical school graduates matched with a residency program at the end of Match Week 2026.
Official graduate data are still pending, but estimates are promising. A record 2,796 first-year residency positions in Texas were offered to students and physicians across the country and abroad. Thus, the state had a 1.19-to-1 ratio of positions offered compared with the total number of estimated graduates. Texas remains on track to stay above its statutory goal of a 1.1-to-1 ratio through 2029, according to TMA analysis.
In 2017, the Texas Legislature first charged the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board to work with medical schools to achieve the 1.1-to-1 ratio. At the time, Texas was projected to reach a total population of 30 million by 2020. Current-day models project that number to grow to anywhere from 35 million to 37 million by 2036. More physicians are needed to meet this expected demand.
Ten of the state’s 15 medical schools that had graduates in 2026 found a residency program for each of their students by the end of Match Week this year. That’s compared with just eight schools having 100% match rates in 2025.
“This shows the quality of our medical schools in the state of Texas and the work they’re doing,” said David Lakey, MD, chief medical officer of the University of Texas System and chair of TMA’s Council on Medical Education. “This has been a focus area for TMA and the council, which has made a concerted effort to minimize the number of medical students that don’t match.”
Dr. Lakey previously praised Texas lawmakers’ $74-million additional investment in new residency positions in the 2026-27 state budget and the way the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board distributed funds for the State Graduate Medical Education Expansion Grant program.
According to TMA’s historical data, an average of 120 Texas medical students have been left unmatched on the first day of Match Week over the past 13 years. An average of 94 students (78%) matched in the following days, and an average of 26 remain unmatched by the end of Match Week.
This year, only 13 fourth-year Texas medical students – half the 13-year average – did not have a residency program by the end of Match Week in March. Most of those students later found a residency program, and TMA staff expect the final unmatched number for 2026 to be in the single digits.
Certain unmatched graduates and international medical graduates have the option to pursue a new limited license created by House Bill 2038 during the 2025 legislative session. As of Aug. 31, no such licenses had been obtained through this pathway, according to the Texas Medical Board.
“Not matching is a really big challenge for those individuals who don’t, especially after they’ve invested all that work into medical school,” Dr. Lakey said. “But again, [Match data] show the quality of work our faculty put in place to make sure our students are well educated, well equipped, and also strategic in their approach to get into the residency programs they want to get into.”
Most specialties saw 100% fill rates. Collectively, Texas’ residency programs had a 94.7% fill rate. Pediatrics had 237 out of 241 spots filled. Family medicine filled 294 out of 347. Dr. Lakey singled out those two primary care specialties as critical to Texas’ medical future.
“As long as primary care physicians are underrecognized and undervalued related to salaries, we will continue to have a challenge filling those positions,” Dr. Lakey said. “We have a significant shortage of those, and it’s hard to attract people into primary care.
“But if you look at the one specialty that is related to increasing the life expectancy of the people that they serve, it’s primary care,” he added, calling primary care yeoman work that the state should continue to strengthen.
For more information about how TMA is boosting the medical workforce, visit the Workforce home page online.