Weather, Family and Friends Make for a Perfect Match for Med Students

Nirisha Commodore said it was Boston University School of Medicine’s focus on communities and advocacy that attracted her to the medical school from her home, the Caribbean Island of Dominica. She was overjoyed Friday that her family could join her as she opened the long white envelope to find she had “matched” to an internal medicine residency program at Emory University in Atlanta.

“I’m so happy! It makes it even more exciting for them to share the moment with me,” said Commodore.

Match Day is an annual tradition dating back 70 years, in which fourth-year medical students nationwide gather at their respective medical schools at noon on the third Friday of March to open the envelopes that contain their “match,” the residency program where they will continue their training for the next three or more years.

“I know for many years to come you’ll be thought of as the class who went through their clerkships and clinical rotations during the COVID pandemic, but for me your class is something much more than that,” said Priya Garg, MD, associate dean for medical education, to the students and their loved ones and friends gathered for the celebration. She noted the Class of 2022’s focus on social justice, gender and health equity, their initiatives to help create a more inclusive classroom and ideas for curriculum changes.

“Your voices are with me when I think about the future of medical education at BUSM,” said Garg. “I know you will be change agents in the future no matter where you go and what it says in that envelope.”

For many of the students assembled in Metcalf Hall, the warm springlike day did little to sooth pre-Match nerves. At the stroke of noon, they crowded around the two long tables where the envelopes were arranged. After opening them, students  clustered in groups with their families, friends and faculty. There was laughter, happy tears and relief that the past year of anxious anticipation was at last behind them.

“It was very nerve-wracking overall,” said Nicolette Jabbour, who hails from Coral Springs, Fla., and found she’d matched with her first choice, an otolaryngology, head and neck surgery residency at Boston Medical Center. Jabbour  has been at Boston University from her undergraduate years thru medical school, with a master’s degree in between.  Unlike former Patriots QB Tom Brady, she loves Boston winters.

“I will probably stay here long term, settle down here,” she said. The pandemic helped her really appreciate her time with friends and family and a little bit of a slower pace. Her mother traveled from Florida to be with her for Match Day.

“That was one of the things that was upsetting about the pandemic. All I wanted was an in-person Match Day,” said Jabbour.

Kapua Meyer was one of four Hawaiian students at the ceremony, all wearing flower wreaths on their heads. They met at BUSM. She is headed to UCLA for a residency in family medicine and is looking forward to snow-free winters again.

“I learned to be flexible, that was the main thing,” she said, which helped her get through medical school during a pandemic.

BUSM Dean Karen Antman, MD, congratulated the Class of ‘22 on reaching Match Day “In person! With your families and significant others.”

“Although your cohort of medical graduates globally had a pretty conventional medical education for the first two years, COVID really upended your clinical education (the final two years),” said Antman, who saw a similarity to the HIV/AIDS crisis in the 1970s that produced outstanding physicians like Anthony Fauci and Paul Farmer, and was confident the pandemic would do likewise with their generation.

“Your class has done very well in the Match,” said Antman. Thirty-seven percent matched in primary care specialties, compared to 30 percent last year, and the class will disperse to residency programs in 30 states, from Maine to Hawaii.

Forty BUSM students will be staying in Massachusetts, 14 of whom will be at Boston Medical Center, one at the combined BMC-Boston Children’s Hospital pediatric residency and one at BUSM affiliate St. Elizabeth’s Medical Center.

California (25) Illinois (15) and New York (14) were the next most popular states. The class matched in a range of programs with the top specialties being internal medicine (32), emergency medicine (15), family medicine & pediatrics (14 each), surgery (10) and anesthesiology (9).

“In nine weeks, you will be graduating,” Antman said. “After that, when you hear the announcement ‘Is there a doctor in the house or on the plane?,’ they will mean you.”

Click here to see the Match Day Facebook Album!