Graduate medical education tool kit for the Supplemental Offer and Acceptance Program: Navigating the National Resident Matching Program supplemental offer assistance program

More residency training programs are involved in the National Resident Matching Program (NRMP) Supplemental Offer and Acceptance Program (SOAP) than in the past, which is unanticipated by many. Without an action plan in place, the SOAP process can be chaotic and could result in offers to incompletely vetted residency applicants and unfilled residency slots. Faced with this challenge, it is important that programs have a unified, clear process and action plan for the SOAP. Our instution has created a SOAP tool kit that documents our strategies, scripts, and timelines in preparation of SOAP. The success of our approach has been gauged by the positive response from the key stakeholders who found this easy to use without significant advanced training. Faculty and staff noted significant efficiencies and improvements in the process when using the SOAP tool kit. Applicants indicated that the process was more organized than other residency programs they interacted with during the SOAP week. We anticipate that the use of the documents in the SOAP tool kit will help other training programs improve their performance during the SOAP process.