Factors important to students in selecting a residency program.

A 22-item questionnaire, designed to assess the factors students considered important when they ranked residency programs, was distributed to the 1988 senior class of Tulane University School of Medicine just before the submission deadline of the National Residency Matching Program. Completed surveys were obtained from 111 of the 157 graduating students (approximately 71%) and were representative of the entire class in terms of sex, age, race, marital status, and anticipated field of specialization. Results of this investigation suggest that the satisfaction of a program's house officers and the seniors' general impression at the interview were the most important selection factors of the matriculating seniors surveyed. Diversity of the training experience and geographic location were also important selection factors. House officer benefits and salary were low-priority factors in the seniors' program selections.