901 N. Washington Avenue Lansing, MI 48906 Phone: (517)485-5484 Fax: (517)485-0801 cord@cordem.org

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Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC)

The Electronic Residency Application System (ERAS)

The National Residency Match Program (NRMP)

One Dupont Circle, #200
Washington, DC 20030
Telephone: (202) 828-0400
Fax: (202) 828-1125
Email: listed by individual
Website: www.aamc.org

Mission Statement: The mission of the Association of American Medical Colleges is to improve the health of the public by enhancing the effectiveness of academic medicine. The AAMC pursues its mission by assisting academic medicine's institutions, organizations and individuals in carrying out their responsibilities for educating the physician and medical scientist workforce; discovering new medical knowledge; developing innovative technologies for prevention, diagnosis and treatment of disease; and providing health care services in academic settings.

Of particular interest to the Program Director:

1. Under the title page heading "Student and Applicant Information" one will find a section titled "Residency." There are three particular areas of interest:

   1. Educational Debt Management for Residents.

      1. The Layman's Guide to Educational Debt Management is designed to provide current, basic, and objective information on how to better manage educational debt during residency and beyond. Eight easy to follow strategies are presented, and are comprehensive in their information sources.

      2. The MONEYMATTERS Listserv is an educational debt management listserv designed to help residents better manage medical student loan portfolios. The listserv offers concise and objective answers to questions about loan portfolios, notices about interest rate changes, information concerning loan repayment (including loan consolidation), reminders about filing for deferment and forbearance, and information concerning economic hardship deferment. This is a confidential service that is free and accessible only to residents, staff who work with residents, and medical school financial aid professionals.

   2. Electronic Residency Application Service (ERAS).

      A complete discussion of ERAS is beyond the scope of this monograph. The Program Director will by necessity become familiar with ERAS, as all applications to Emergency Medicine programs are now paperless. To go directly to ERAS: www.aamc.org/about/progemph/eras/start.html

      ERAS is a service which transmits residency applications, letters of recommendation, Dean's Letters, transcripts, and other supporting credentials from medical schools (where the student prepares the application) to Program Directors using the Internet. On the Program Director's Work Station (PDWS) the Emergency Medicine residency applications are presented in a uniform, orderly fashion for the review of the Program Director or designee.

      Advantages to ERAS are the elimination of paperwork and its attendant time obligation on the part of residency staff, and a uniform presentation of application materials. Additional features include customizing filters to ease application review, and a scoring system for each facet of the application.

      The software is user friendly. However, ERAS offers training sessions covering use of the Program Directors Workstation which are directed primarily toward new users, in an attempt to assist with integration of ERAS tools into their current operations. From the ERAS title page, go to "Resource Center" and click on "more"; look for "ERAS General Information." There will be a hypertext link to "Training Information" which will provide workshop, hotel, and airfare details.

   3. National Resident Matching Program (NRMP).

      A complete discussion of the NRMP is beyond the scope of this monograph. As with ERAS, the Program Director will become familiar with the working of the NRMP out of necessity. To proceed directly to the NRMP site: www.nrmp.aamc.org/nrmp/.

      1. "About the NRMP" (found on the bottom of the title page) provides an overview of the NRMP, its sponsoring organizations and purpose, how the NRMP actually works, and an explanation of how the Matching Algorithm with Rank Order Lists is used to place individuals in residency positions.

      2. "For Program Directors Only" leads to a page with much helpful information, particularly "Rank Order Lists" and "Announcement of Results".

         1. All Rank Order Lists are now entered in the Rank Order List Input and Confirmation (ROLIC) system via the Internet. This section details the procedure whereby lists are entered into ROLIC.

         2. The "Announcement of Results" section contains a valuable review of the timeline of Match result announcements, and a section on how to manage if a program does not fill its positions.

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