Knowing how to choose a residency program is hard because most of what applicants see is marketing: websites, social media and a polished interview day. Public data won’t tell you whether residents are happy, but it can tell you how big and busy a hospital is, how it scores on quality, how much demand there is for doctors in the area, and where people trained there end up. Here’s how to use it alongside the Match process.
1. To choose a residency program, start with the training landscape
Residents and fellows are concentrated in a few states. The map shows full-time-equivalent residents and fellows per 100,000 people, from Medicare hospital cost reports:
Every teaching hospital is on the interactive map below: hover over a dot to see how many residents and fellows it trains, select it to open the hospital’s page, and zoom into a state or pick a specialty to shade counties by how many of those doctors practice there.
Dots: teaching hospitals, sized by residents and fellows in training (larger dots are bigger; hover for details, select one to open it). Shading: physicians per 100,000 residents by county; pick another specialty above.
Sources: CMS Hospital Provider Cost Reports (residents and fellows, full-time equivalents), CMS Provider Data (hospital locations), NPPES NPI Registry and U.S. Census Bureau ACS 2020–2024 (shading).
By state, residents and fellows per 100,000 people:
Source: CMS Hospital Provider Cost Reports (residents and fellows in approved programs, full-time equivalents, latest fiscal year per hospital) and U.S. Census Bureau ACS 2020–2024. Training outside hospitals that file cost reports is not counted.
The largest teaching hospitals train thousands of residents and fellows each. Select one to see its clinicians by specialty, quality ratings and nearby hospitals:
| Hospital | Residents and fellows |
|---|---|
| New York-Presbyterian Hospital New York, NY | 2,015 |
| NYU Langone Hospitals New York, NY | 1,372 |
| Montefiore Medical Center Bronx, NY | 1,276 |
| Mount Sinai Hospital New York, NY | 1,097 |
| University of Michigan Health System Ann Arbor, MI | 1,031 |
| Yale-New Haven Hospital New Haven, CT | 971 |
| Johns Hopkins Hospital, the Baltimore, MD | 954 |
| Cleveland Clinic Cleveland, OH | 924 |
| Vanderbilt University Medical Center Nashville, TN | 900 |
| Hospital of Univ of Pennsylvania Philadelphia, PA | 884 |
| Unc Hospitals Chapel Hill, NC | 857 |
| Barnes Jewish Hospital Saint Louis, MO | 810 |
| UPMC Presbyterian Shadyside Pittsburgh, PA | 780 |
| Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center Los Angeles, CA | 780 |
| Strong Memorial Hospital Rochester, NY | 777 |
| Duke University Hospital Durham, NC | 771 |
| Musc Medical Center Charleston, SC | 751 |
| Massachusetts General Hospital Boston, MA | 751 |
| Northwestern Memorial Hospital Chicago, IL | 740 |
| University of Iowa Hospital & Clinics Iowa City, IA | 739 |
You can list every teaching hospital in a state on our hospitals page.
2. Look at clinical volume and case mix
A busy service means more experience. On each hospital page you can see how many clinicians in your specialty list the hospital, and on each specialty page the services that specialty bills most in Medicare. Ask programs for case logs and procedure numbers for recent graduates, and compare them with what your specialty board requires.
3. Check hospital quality before you choose a residency program
Hospital pages show Medicare’s overall star rating, the patient survey rating, and how many mortality, safety and readmission measures are better or worse than the national rate. A program’s main hospital isn’t everything, but consistently poor results can signal strained resources.
4. Choose a residency program where you want to practice
Many physicians practice near where they trained. Look at demand where you might stay: doctors per capita by county, shortage areas (often with loan repayment) and aging doctors by state.
5. Use the interview to test what data can’t show
Ask about resident wellness, schedules and duty hours, board pass rates, fellowship and job placement, and what changed after recent feedback. Our residency interview questions list covers what to ask and why.
Program length and fellowships
Training length after medical school ranges from three years to seven or more. See residency and fellowship length by specialty.
Sources
Residents and fellows: CMS Hospital Provider Cost Reports. Program lengths: ACGME (opens in a new tab). Match process and dates: NRMP (opens in a new tab) and AAMC ERAS (opens in a new tab). Hospital quality: CMS Care Compare.