Skip to main content
Physiatry '26 Main banner
Final Program


Final Program

Administrative / Leadership / Education

1612 - Geographic Trends in The PM&R Residency Match: A Post Hoc Analysis from 2025 PM&R Residency Application Cycle

Thursday, February 19, 2026
5:00 PM - 6:30 PM AST

    Presenting Author(s)

  • MB

    Michael A. Blatt, MD

    Resident Physician
    MedStar Washington Hospital center, Department of Internal Medicine
    Washington, District of Columbia, United States

    • Co-Author(s)

  • AC

    Amanda Cooper, PhD

    Research Development Associate
    University of Utah
    Salt Lake City, Utah, United States

  • KS

    Katharine A. Smolinski, DO

    Assistant Professor
    Unversity of Utah
    Salt Lake City, Utah, United States

    • Submitter(s)

  • MB

    Michael A. Blatt, N/A, MD

    MedStar Washington Hospital center
    Washington, District of Columbia, United States

Objectives:

To assess how geographic location of PM&R applicants and programs may influence residency match outcomes.

Design:

2025 Match data was obtained from PM&R program social media posts and categorized by the corresponding AAMC region.  Contingency table analysis was used to evaluate whether the geographic location of an applicant's medical school held predictive value for the geographic location of the PM&R program where they matched for residency. Tables with observed and expected frequencies were created for each possible combination of medical school and residency location, at both the Regional and Divisional levels. Chi-square and Fisher's exact tests assessed associations between variables, with calculation of odds ratios and their 95% confidence intervals to quantify effect sizes.

Results:

Program match data from 410 applicants among 84 programs (78% of total residency positions and 77% of programs, respectively) were included in this analysis. Regional alignment of an applicant and residency program occurred for 48% of matches. Applicants were significantly more likely to match into a PM&R residency program located in the same geographic region as their medical school, with significant positive associations found for all but the New England Division (p=1.00).

Conclusions:

This study demonstrates a significant correlation between the geographic location of an applicant’s medical school and the PM&R residency program they ultimately attend— with observed variability of effect size for several applicant and program regions. This pattern likely reflects applicants’ preference to remain near their current region and underscores the indirect role of geography in shaping networking opportunities for both applicants and programs. These findings may help guide applicants in their residency search and highlights the importance of expanding PM&R training programs in regions with limited academic representation.