Source: AAFP News: Inside the Academy, published January 21, 2026
Family medicine residency programs and applicants will benefit from several changes in the 2027 National Resident Matching Program (Match) sparked by the American Academy of Family Physicians’s (AAFP) Residency Selection Improvement Initiative (RSII).
The AAFP launched the initiative in August 2025 to identify improvements that could be put in place within a year or two to help fill more family medicine positions in the National Resident Matching Program (NRMP)’s Main Residency Match as effectively, efficiently, and economically as possible.
Karen Mitchell, MD, FAAFP, AAFP vice president for national residency and academic partnerships, said that the Academy expects to have significant changes in place by June.
“At our convening in August, stakeholders identified four priority areas,” Mitchell said. “I am pleased how quickly efforts on these have progressed.”
Family medicine welcomed nearly 5,400 first-year residents in 2025, the largest first-year resident class in the specialty’s history. Family medicine residencies offered a record number of positions for the 16th year in a row, and more than 800 residency programs filled 4,574 positions in the Main Match. That left 805 positions unfilled prior to the Supplemental Offer and Acceptance Program.
The AAFP’s residency initiative aims to improve recruitment and selection for both applicants and programs. The effort includes participation from the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC), the NRMP, the Association of Family Medicine Residency Directors (AFMRD) and a cross-section of members who are students, residents, advisors and residency staff, including representatives of other national family medicine organizations.
Read the full article in AAFP News: Inside the Academy.