ASHP Announces Secondary Residency Match Process

Beginning March 2016, the American Society of Health'System Pharmacists (ASHP) will hold a new secondary match for students applying to pharmacy residency programs. Named Phase II, the secondary match will begin the week after results from the initial Phase I are released.

All applicants who register for Phase I of the Match but do not obtain a position will be eligible to participate in Phase II, as well as those who register after the deadline for Phase I. Applicants who match to a position in Phase I will not be eligible to participate in Phase II.

All positions at a program that remain unfilled in Phase I must be offered to applicants in Phase II of the Match.

Due to the short interval between Phase I results and the Phase II deadline for ranking submission, it is not clear whether residency programs will host interviews for their unfilled positions.

The new Phase II Match will help meet the needs of the rapidly growing number of applicants seeking residencies and ensure

that applicants have another structured opportunity to connect with open positions, according to ASHP.

Previously, unmatched applicants participated in an informal post-match scramble to programs that were unable to fill their open positions.

“The old ‘scramble’ method to fill open positions is no longer the best option due to the rapid increase in the number of positions as well as the number of unmatched candidates in recent years,” stated Janet Silvester, PharmD, MBA, FASHP, vice president of ASHP Accreditation Services Office. “This new second Match will ensure that a predictable, fair process is available for both students and residency programs.”

This past year’s Match resulted in 1755 unmatched applicants who were eligible to scramble into the

270 unfilled PGY1 and 112 unfilled PGY2 programs. This past year marked a 60% increase in unfilled residency positions and a 9% increase in unmatched applicants since 2013, according to ASHP.

Silvester said a Post-Match Scramble will still be held after the Phase II Match, though ASHP anticipates that it will include fewer applicants and programs than in the past.