Position Statement:

Postdoctoral Dental Education Matching Program (the ‘Match’) 

Position Statement of the American College of Prosthodontists
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The American College of Prosthodontists (ACP) supports an orderly, professional, and fair process for prosthodontic specialty programs to recruit residents and help applicants obtain positions in programs of their choice.

The Match process is designed to support the program director and applicant’s professionalism and integrity. The National Matching Services Inc. (NMS), on behalf of the Sponsoring Organizations, carry out the administration and implementation of the Dental Match.

Resident recruitment and selection difficulties encountered without Match include:

• Programs’ recruitment starting earlier each year
• Inconsistent selection communications between the program directors and candidates
• Applicants pressured to respond to offers before they can evaluate other programs of interest
• Program directors pressured to accept residents before they complete their applicant interview and assessment process
• Temptation by applicants to ignore early acceptance decisions and programs then having selectees cancelling their commitments

The Postdoctoral Dental Matching Program is a method of addressing many of these problems. The following information explaining the process is from the NMS website:

The Postdoctoral Dental Matching Program (the ‘Match’) provides an orderly process to help applicants obtain positions in postdoctoral dental education programs of their choice, and to help programs obtain applicants of their choice.

Participating programs must offer through the Match all positions being offered for the first year of training in the programs. A position may be offered prior to the Match only with written approval from the appropriate sponsoring organization.

Applicants and program directors register to participate in the Match Placement Process.

Applicants apply for positions and program directors evaluate the applicants. Programs can use the same application, evaluation, and interview processes as they have in the past, or they can use NMS's online tools to facilitate the process.

After all evaluations are complete, each applicant submits a Rank Order List to the Matching Service on which the applicant lists the desired programs, in numerical order of the applicant's preference (first choice, second choice, etc.). Similarly, each program submits a Rank Order List on which the program lists the desirable applicants, in order of the program's preference. Each program also indicates the number of positions the program has available.

The Match then places individuals into positions based entirely on the preferences stated in the Rank Order Lists.

Since all offers, acceptances, rejections, and final placements occur simultaneously, the Match is an effective and fair means of implementing a standardized acceptance date. It allows programs and applicants to evaluate each other fully before determining preferences, thus alleviating the pressures to make premature decisions based on incomplete information.¹

To ensure professionalism and integrity

• Programs must not tell candidates their rank order status
• Candidates and programs must honor the rank order list they submit to the Match

The Postdoctoral Dental Matching Program is most effective when 100% of the eligible programs subscribe. Military programs have their own selection process and are not eligible to participate.

Programs that do not join the ‘Match’ have an earlier selectee commitment advantage but run the risk of settling for residents who otherwise would not be accepted in the program.

The position of the American College of Prosthodontists is that the Postdoctoral Dental Matching Program provides a professional and effective means for resident selection. The decision about whether to use this process should be determined by the program directors of the ADA-recognized prosthodontic specialty programs. The ACP supports and has become a Sponsoring Organization of the Match since a majority of advanced prosthodontic programs have opted into this process. As such, the ACP, along with other sponsoring organizations, is responsible for establishing the rules of the Dental Match Program.

References

1. National Matching Services, Inc.: Overview of the matching program. Available online at https://www.natmatch.com/dentres/aboutoverview.html. Accessed May 17, 2022