The magic of Match Day – and the future of the physician workforce – is alive and well as statewide numbers show Texas initially filled 95% of offered positions. This included 2,058 fourth-year U.S. medical students, with jumps in key specialties like internal medicine, neurology, and emergency medicine.
Totals from the National Resident Matching Program (NRMP) show Texas initially filled 2,842 residency program positions this year compared to 2,712 in 2025, a 4.8% increase. Nationally, NRMP calculated a 1.8% annual increase in filled positions in the initial match process with this year’s total of 41,482 compared with last year’s 40,764.
“It’s like opening a treasure chest,” said Jacob Sutton, one of 40 students at The University of Texas at Austin Dell Medical School who opened their envelopes at exactly 11 am on March 20. “You worked so hard to find the X in the sand, and then you dug it up. And here’s everything you worked for right here in front of you.”
UT System Chief Medical Officer David Lakey, MD, sees good news all over the NRMP’s annual report. As chair of the Texas Medical Association’s Council on Medical Education, Dr. Lakey says the numbers will signal to Texas lawmakers that their $74-million additional investment in new residency positions in the 2026-27 state budget and the decisions made by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board in distributing those grant funds were well advised.
“A lot of states would be envious of the investment that the Texas Legislature has put in place to expand graduate and medical education in the state of Texas,” Dr. Lakey said. “When all that worked, we were able to bring significantly more medical students into residency slots in Texas.”
With the strong legislative support for expanding the state’s graduate medical education capacity since 2014, and Texas law that requires new medical schools to plan for the residency training needs of its own graduates, Texas has been able to meet the state target ratio of 1.1 to 1 entry-level residency positions per Texas medical school graduate since 2018.
And there is optimism about the future based on TMA’s analysis of graduate medical education trends. If the total number of entry-level residency positions remains the same or above this year’s total of 2,350 going forward, TMA’s analysis projects the state will be able to maintain the 1.1 to 1 target ratio through 2029.
The seeds planted through TMA’s coordinated effort to help secure legislative funding were sprouting in NRMP’s report. All match rates in this story are based on the statistics released by NRMP and represent match results on the first day of Match Week. NRMP offers a post-match process to those who do not initially match, and additional matches were made by the end of Match Week. Final match results will be released in the spring.
Preliminary match results include some notable highlights:
- Internal medicine saw the largest net annual increase, 34, or 4.2% in positions filled compared to 2025;
- Neurology had the second highest net annual increase of 16, or 19.5% in filled positions;
- Emergency medicine followed closely after for filled positions, with a net annual increase of 15, or 7.5%;
- Surgery had a 7.4% jump in positions filled, up to 175;
- Family medicine, with the second-largest number of offered positions, did not fill all of its 347 slots, yet the 294 that were filled represent a 3.9% increase over the 2025 totals.
Dr. Lakey was also impressed that psychiatry filled all of its 176 slots. The following specialties also had more than 10 offered positions and filled every one: anesthesiology, child neurology, dermatology, emergency medicine, medicine-pediatrics, neurological surgery, neurology, orthopedic surgery, otolaryngology, pathology, physical medicine and rehabilitation, plastic surgery, and radiation oncology.
Obstetrics and gynecology fell just two short of filling all 146 positions, reaching a 99% fill rate. An additional eight positions were offered in this specialty this year.
Texas’ strong showing includes many residents who matched to stay in the state, contributing to a pipeline of homegrown physicians to support Texas’ growing population.
One new surgery resident is Katherine “KC” Koepp, a former Marine who’s been married for 15 years and has three boys. She was ecstatic to be staying put and going into the surgical residency at Dell Med.
“I have the opportunity to serve people, and I just get excited to learn about medicine and how amazing it is what we can do,” Koepp said. “Going into surgery, I like to fix things, and so I hope I get the opportunity to do that.”
TMA is currently analyzing how many medical students statewide matched with an in-state program versus out of state. Exactly half of Dell Med’s 40 students matched with a residency program in Texas, and 10 of the 20 are staying at Dell Med, according to UT. Mr. Sutton is one of those headed out of state, having matched with the neurology program at the University of Colorado.
Texas continues to attract out-of-state applicants to its medical schools, too. Vice Dean of Education at Dell Med James R. Korndorffer Jr., MD, says the school had roughly 6,000 applications for its 50 slots. He’s excited about the future of the Texas physician workforce.
“Sure, there are a lot of challenges with medicine, but the people who come through [Texas medical schools] can see through that,” Dr. Korndorffer said. “They understand it’s a calling. It’s hard work and they’re willing to put themselves out there and do that. There’s still plenty of people wanting to do that.”
Students, residents, and fellows can get involved with TMA via local student chapters and the Resident and Fellow Section.