AMA—Fellowship and Residency Electronic Interactive Database Access (AMA-FREIDA):

Abstract

Over the past several years, medical educators and students have been expressing increasing concern about the selection process for graduate medical education programs. The senior year of medical school is a period of intense pressure when medical students must choose a specialty, select a graduate program, and, in some cases, rehearse an internship.1Residents who have experienced that process have stated that they did not have enough information to make an informed choice.1-3 Students seek information about graduate medical education programs from a variety of sources. However, 52% of residents in one study said they did not have available the information they needed to make a decision about a graduate medical education program.4One study found theDirectory of Graduate Medical Education Programsto be the single most important source of information.3Another study found that residents consider published information to be the most important source,