Assigning Israeli medical graduates to internships

Slava Bronfman*, Avinatan Hassidim, Arnon Afek, Assaf Romm, Rony Shreberk, Ayal Hassidim, Anda Massler

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

13 Scopus citations

Abstract

Background: Physicians in Israel are required to do an internship in an accredited hospital upon completion of the medical studies, and prior to receiving the medical license. For most students, the assignment is determined by a lottery, which takes into consideration the preferences of these students. Objectives: We propose a novel way to perform this lottery, in which (on average) a larger number of students gets one of their top choices. We report about implementing this method in the 2014 Internship Lottery in Israel. Methods: The new method is based on calculating a tentative lottery, in which each student has some probability of getting to each hospital. Then a computer program "trades" between the students, where trade is performed only if it is beneficial to both sides. This trade creates surplus, which translates to more students getting one of their top choices. Results: The average student improved his place by 0.91 seats. Conclusions: The new method can improve the welfare of medical graduates, by giving them more probability to get to one of their top choices. It can be applied in internship markets in other countries as well.

Original languageEnglish
Article number6
JournalIsrael Journal of Health Policy Research
Volume4
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - 20 Mar 2015

Funding

FundersFunder number
United States-Israel Binational Science Foundation2012344
United States-Israel Binational Science Foundation
Israel Science Foundation1241/12
Israel Science Foundation

    Keywords

    • Internship
    • Israel
    • Lottery
    • Market design
    • Medical graduates

    Fingerprint

    Dive into the research topics of 'Assigning Israeli medical graduates to internships'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

    Cite this