Mercer University School of Medicine celebrated the 2026 National Residency Match Day on March 20 at all three of its four-year campuses in Macon, Savannah and Columbus. Graduating students from the Valdosta clinical campus joined the celebration on their preclinical campus.

Ninety-eight percent of medical students in the class of 2026 were successfully matched to postgraduate training programs at hospitals in Georgia and across the country. Of those, 79% will be entering into a core specialty. Core specialties include family medicine, general internal medicine, pediatrics, obstetrics and gynecology, general surgery, psychiatry, and emergency medicine.

The top specialties where MUSM students matched this year were: 

• Internal medicine
• Family medicine
• General surgery
• Psychiatry
• Pediatrics
• Obstetrics and gynecology
• Emergency medicine

Graduates will attend residency in 23 states but matched in Georgia more than anywhere else. Of those attending residency in Georgia, 38% matched into residencies with Mercer-affiliated teaching hospitals, including Atrium Health Navicent The Medical Center and Piedmont Macon Medical Center in Macon; Memorial Health University Medical Center in Savannah; Piedmont Columbus Regional Hospital and St. Francis Hospital in Columbus; and at SGMC Health in Valdosta.

“The Class of 2026 is a wonderful group of accomplished students who are committed to helping provide access to quality health care for all Georgians,” said Jean Sumner, M.D., M.A.C.P., dean of MUSM. “We are very proud of these outstanding young, soon-to-be physicians, who will be the kind of doctors this state so desperately needs.”