The American Osteopathic Association (AOA) Department of Education maintains historical annual data on approved, funded, and filled AOA positions, as reported by the National Matching Services (an AOA vendor) and the Trainee Information, Verification and Registration Audit (TIVRA) survey tool. The current appendix includes an update for the 2017-2018 academic year. The AOA does not finalize postdoctoral training data until May of each calendar year. The decline in the number of programs and positions is expected as programs achieve accreditation through the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education and subsequently withdraw their AOA approval. For information about AOA-approved programs in light of the single accreditation system for graduate medical education, see the article from Buser et al on page 257 of this issue.
Approved positions are the number of training slots awarded to a program by the Program and Trainee Review Council upon initial accreditation or through a request for an increase or decrease submitted by an already established program. Filled positions are the number of those approved training slots that are used to accommodate a trainee enrolled in the program.
Table 1 illustrates the distribution of AOA internship, residency, and fellowship programs and trainees filling available positions by state. Florida, Michigan, New York, Ohio, and Pennsylvania have the highest number of programs, positions, and trainees.
Table 2 shows the number of AOA-approved residency and fellowship programs and their approved and filled positions as reported by academic year and specialty. Fifty percent of residents are in the primary care specialties of family medicine (30%) and internal medicine (20%) for 2017-2018. They were followed by emergency medicine, which accounted for 12% of total residents.