New data show that the number of physicians choosing infectious disease fellowships continued to drop in this year’s Match while more than half of all residents were female in 2025. Here’s a look at trends in physician training.
Infectious disease: 2026 Match
Early data from the 2026 Match reported by Axios show that interest in infectious disease fellowships continues to slide among young physicians.
According to data from the National Residency Matching Program, 319 physicians applied for infectious disease fellowships that will begin in 2026, filling only about 60% of open slots. By comparison, 404 residents applied in 2021, filling 88% of slots. That was the highest number of ID slots filled since the pandemic.
Axios quoted Wendy Armstrong, president of the Infectious Diseases Society of America, who chalked up dwindling interest in her specialty to “the environment that we are in right now where our specialty has frankly been under attack.” Analysts say that the federal government’s overhaul of vaccine policy and cuts to health funding likely has tamped down interest in infectious disease as a specialty.
The Axios report also noted that as ID specialists are among the lowest paid physicians. A recent Medscape compensation report, for example, found that the specialty earns an average of about $277,000 a year, lower than pay for internists.
In addition, ID specialists are expecting to see their Medicare pay drop 6% this year.
Female physicians: 2025 recap
For the first time ever, female physicians last year made up a majority of residents. Data from the Association of American Medical Colleges’ 2025 “Report on Residents” show that in 2025, 50.2% of medical residents were women.
The AAMC also found that female residents account for more solid majorities in the following specialties: obstetrics and gynecology (88.8%), pediatrics (75.8%), family medicine (56.3%) and psychiatry (53.9%).
Males, by comparison, still have a solid majority in orthopedic surgery residents (76.3%), neurosurgery (72.9%) and anesthesiology (61.8%).
Other trends in medical residency
The AAMC also found that in 2025, the number of medical residents had grown for the seventh year in a row to a total of 163,189 physicians. Since 2019, the number of medical residents has increased by about 4,000 a year.
International medical graduates accounted for 24.2% of medical residents, up slightly from 23.4% in 2023-2024.
The AAMC report also looked at trends in the number of medical students who change the specialty they want to match into.
For the past three years, between 27% and 30% (29.4% in 2025) kept their specialty preference the same. The specialties that saw the lowest rates of medical students changing their minds in 2025 were orthopedic surgery (54.1%), neurosurgery (47.5%) and pediatrics (41.9%).
