Mercer University School of Medicine celebrated the 2026 National Residency Match Day on March 20 at all three of its four-year campuses in Macon, Savannah and Columbus. Graduating students from the Valdosta clinical campus joined the celebration on their preclinical campus.
Ninety-eight percent of medical students in the class of 2026 were successfully matched to postgraduate training programs at hospitals in Georgia and across the country. Of those, 79% will be entering into a core specialty. Core specialties include family medicine, general internal medicine, pediatrics, obstetrics and gynecology, general surgery, psychiatry, and emergency medicine.
The top specialties where MUSM students matched this year were:
- Internal medicine
- Family medicine
- General surgery
- Psychiatry
- Pediatrics
- Obstetrics and gynecology
- Emergency medicine
Graduates will attend residency in 23 states but matched in Georgia more than anywhere else. Of those attending residency in Georgia, 38% matched into residencies with Mercer-affiliated teaching hospitals, including Atrium Health Navicent The Medical Center and Piedmont Macon Medical Center in Macon; Memorial Health University Medical Center in Savannah; Piedmont Columbus Regional Hospital and St. Francis Hospital in Columbus; and at SGMC Health in Valdosta.
“The Class of 2026 is a wonderful group of accomplished students who are committed to helping provide access to quality health care for all Georgians,” said Jean Sumner, M.D., M.A.C.P., dean of MUSM. “We are very proud of these outstanding young, soon-to-be physicians, who will be the kind of doctors this state so desperately needs.”
About The Match
The National Resident Matching Program® (NRMP®), also known as The Match®, is an independent, nonprofit organization whose responsibility is to place the nation’s medical school talent into clinical training programs, ensuring a steady pipeline of highly qualified professionals are building the necessary skills to care for patients across the country. The NRMP was established in 1953 at the request of medical students to provide an orderly and fair mechanism for matching the preferences of applicants for U.S. residency positions with the preferences of residency program directors.
About Mercer University School of Medicine (Macon, Savannah, Columbus and Valdosta)
Mercer University’s School of Medicine was established in 1982 to educate physicians and health professionals to meet the primary care and health care needs of rural and medically underserved areas of Georgia. Today, more than 60% of graduates currently practice in the state of Georgia, and of those, more than 80% are practicing in rural or medically underserved areas of Georgia. Mercer medical students benefit from a problem-based medical education program that provides early patient care experiences. Such an academic environment fosters the early development of clinical problem-solving and instills in each student an awareness of the place of the basic medical sciences in medical practice. The School opened additional four-year M.D. campuses in Savannah in 2008 and in Columbus in 2021, and a clinical campus in Valdosta in 2024. Following their second year, students participate in core clinical clerkships at the School’s primary teaching hospitals: Atrium Health Navicent The Medical Center and Piedmont Macon Medical Center in Macon; Memorial Health University Medical Center in Savannah; Piedmont Columbus Regional Hospital and St. Francis Hospital in Columbus; and SGMC Health in Valdosta. The School also offers master’s degrees in preclinical sciences and family therapy and Ph.Ds. in biomedical sciences and rural health sciences.
