A retrospective longitudinal study of students' residency choices at the French medical ranking exam.

A retrospective longitudinal study of students' residency choices at the French medical ranking exam. | Research Square window.SnipcartSettings = { analytics: { enabled: false } }; (function() { var accessVector = localStorage.getItem('access_vector') || ''; window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; if (accessVector) { window.dataLayer.push({ user: { profile: { profileInfo: { snid: accessVector } } } }); } })(); (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-K279D39R'); Browse Preprints In Review Journals COVID-19 Preprints AJE Video Bytes Research Tools Research Promotion AJE Professional Editing AJE Rubriq About Preprint Platform In Review Editorial Policies Our Team Advisory Board Help Center Sign In Submit a Preprint Cite Share Download PDF Research Article A retrospective longitudinal study of students' residency choices at the French medical ranking exam. Arthur Coste, David Morland, Jean Marie Becker, Pierre Nazeyrollas, and 4 more This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-4901941/v1 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Published Journal Publication published 05 Dec, 2025 Read the published version in BMC Medical Education → Version 1 posted 10 You are reading this latest preprint version Abstract Background The evolution of medical students population and their choices of medical residency is poorly documented in France. The objective of this study was to perform a retrospective analysis of medical students residency choices at their national ranking exam (NRE) once they have completed six years of theoretical and practical medical training. Methods Published choices after the French NRE were processed from 2011 to 2023. A longitudinal follow-up of the median rank of affected students for each medical speciality and each training university hospitals is presented. Demographics and gender statistics are also presented. Violin plots, heatmaps and bump charts were used for a better analysis. Mann-Kendall test was used for trend analysis. Results We analyzed choices of more than 100,000 students and show that men were more likely to have a better ranking, though with a non homogeneous distribution compared to women who were more homogeneously distributed. We also proved that younger students better performed at the exam. We observed an unprecedented increased attractiveness of medical gynecology (+14 places, p=0.007) as well as anesthesiology and resucitation (+13 places, p=0.008).Vascular medicine (+4 places, p=0.014), otorhinolaryngology (+2 places, p=0.041) and dermatology (+5 places, p=0.019) also significantly gained attractivity over the study period contrary to neurosurgery (-23 places, p=0.023) and infectious diseases (-8 places, p=0.048). Medical schools of Rennes (+7 places, p=0.005) and Caen (+3 places, p=0.048) have been gaining interest over the whole period while Grenoble (-5 places, p=0.013), Paris (-5 places, p=0.0083) and Limoges (-4 places, p=0.006) have been significantly loosing attractivity. Conclusion This work provides an overview of choices trends at the French medical NRE and illustrates for the first time the evolution of medical students’ demography and residency choices over a thirteen-year period. NRE Medical studies French medical graduates Residency programme Attractiveness Gender dynamics Full Text Additional Declarations No competing interests reported. Cite Share Download PDF Status: Published Journal Publication published 05 Dec, 2025 Read the published version in BMC Medical Education → Version 1 posted Editorial decision: Revision requested 21 Aug, 2025 Reviews received at journal 17 Aug, 2025 Reviewers agreed at journal 02 Aug, 2025 Reviews received at journal 06 Oct, 2024 Reviewers agreed at journal 26 Sep, 2024 Reviewers invited by journal 18 Sep, 2024 Editor invited by journal 23 Aug, 2024 Editor assigned by journal 20 Aug, 2024 Submission checks completed at journal 20 Aug, 2024 First submitted to journal 12 Aug, 2024 You are reading this latest preprint version Research Square lets you share your work early, gain feedback from the community, and start making changes to your manuscript prior to peer review in a journal. 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Also discoverable on Platform About Our Team In Review Editorial Policies Advisory Board Help Center Resources Author Services Accessibility API Access RSS feed Manage Cookie Preferences © Research Square 2026 | ISSN 2693-5015 (online) Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information {"props":{"pageProps":{"initialData":{"identity":"rs-4901941","acceptedTermsAndConditions":true,"allowDirectSubmit":false,"archivedVersions":[],"articleType":"Research Article","associatedPublications":[],"authors":[{"id":354514936,"identity":"610e30ba-d57c-437d-ac78-7d58b6ee04b2","order_by":0,"name":"Arthur 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The objective of this study was to perform a retrospective analysis of medical students residency choices at their national ranking exam (NRE) once they have completed six years of theoretical and practical medical training.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eMethods\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePublished choices after the French NRE were processed from 2011 to 2023. A longitudinal follow-up of the median rank of affected students for each medical speciality and each training university hospitals is presented. Demographics and gender statistics are also presented. Violin plots, heatmaps and bump charts were used for a better analysis. Mann-Kendall test was used for trend analysis.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eResults\u003c/strong\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWe analyzed choices of more than 100,000 students and show that men were more likely to have a better ranking, though with a non homogeneous distribution compared to women who were more homogeneously distributed. We also proved that younger students better performed at the exam. We observed an unprecedented increased attractiveness of medical gynecology (+14 places, p=0.007) as well as anesthesiology and resucitation (+13 places, p=0.008).Vascular medicine (+4 places, p=0.014), otorhinolaryngology (+2 places, p=0.041) and dermatology (+5 places, p=0.019) also significantly gained attractivity over the study period contrary to neurosurgery (-23 places, p=0.023) and infectious diseases (-8 places, p=0.048). 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