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Office of Graduate Medical Education

Selection Policy

All programs must select from among eligible applicants on the basis of their preparedness, ability, aptitude, academic credentials, communication skills, and personal qualities such as motivation and integrity. No program may discriminate with regard to sex, race, age, religion, color, national origin, disability or veteran status.

Applicants with one of the following qualifications are eligible for appointment to accredited residency programs at SUNY-Downstate:

  • Graduates of medical schools in the United States and Canada accredited by the Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME)
  • Graduates of colleges of osteopathic medicine in the United States accredited by the American Osteopathic Association (AOA)
  • Graduate of medical schools outside the United States and Canada who meet one of the following qualifications:
  • Have a currently valid certificate from the Educational Commission for Foreign
  • Medical Graduates or
  • Have a full and unrestricted license to practice medicine in a U.S. licensing jurisdiction.
  • Graduates of medical schools outside the U.S. who have completed a Fifth Pathway program provided by an LCME accredited medical school
  • Dental residents must hold a DDS or DMD degree from a school approved by the Commission on Dental Accreditation and a NYS License/Limited Permit.

All programs must participate in the National Residency Matching Program and abide by all NRMP Policies and Procedures. Any exceptions must be approved by the GMEC. When programs do not fill through the match, residents may subsequently be appointed to unfilled positions from the pool of unmatched students, or other sources, as long as they meet institutional standards.

Each program must have a set of written standards, appropriate to the specialty, to guide resident selection. For each program, the selection of residents should be the responsibility of a committee of the faculty which has the opportunity to review application materials, rate residents against the published selection standards, and agree as a group on those residents to be selected either through the match or otherwise. Such decisions should ordinarily not be those of an individual program leader.

The enrollment of non-eligible residents may be a cause for withdrawal of accreditation by the ACGME.