Match Day Envelopes Hold their Future: Medical Students Learn Where They Will Train Next

On Friday, March 21,  Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine fourth-year medical students gathered at the George Sherman Union’s Metcalf Hall to learn where they would be heading as residents, the next stop on their journey into the practice of medicine. At exactly noon, students opened their envelopes, as the relief, happiness, and nervous anticipation burst into cries of excitement and the embrace of family and friends celebrating, as they learned which residency training program they would spend the next 3-7 years learning their specialty under the supervision of experienced physicians.

“The days are long, but the years are short,” Medical Campus Provost and Dean Karen Antman, MD, told students on what is her last Match Day in these roles. After two decades leading the school and campus, Antman will be returning to the faculty once her successor is named.

“Not only do our faculty think that you are going to make outstanding physicians but the programs that have chosen you think you will as well,” she said.

Organized by the Student Affairs Office and the Student Match Day Committee, Match Day is an annual ritual repeated at all medical schools across the country as graduating medical students open white envelopes simultaneously on the third Friday in March. Since the 1950s, Match Day has relied upon an algorithm overseen by the National Resident Matching Program to match students to residency programs according to preference lists developed by the student and the programs.

“You have participated in research that will contribute to science across disciplines; you have spent hours in service to our Boston community, and you have done all of this while successfully completing your own requirements and course work, taking board exams and managing life that continues to happen. You are more than ready for residency,” said Priya Garg, MD, associate dean of medical education.

“I love New York. It’s where my family is; it’s where I’m from. I’m so happy,” said Nisha Mathur, who celebrated being accepted into an internal medicine residency at New York University Grossman School of Medicine with her extended family, including her grandmother, a physician who traveled from India for Match Day.

Mathur served as director of the Stop Shackling Patients Coalition, a BU medical and public health students and faculty-led collaborative effort to end universal shackling of prisoners while they are receiving medical treatment. She was inspired to enter medical school by her grandfather in India and her mother who immigrated to the U.S., both physicians caring for the underserved. As a child, she often spent summers in India with her late grandfather and grandmother.

“He was a pediatrician, and he had his clinic in the basement of his house. He used to have patients lined up down the street, and he would see them until very late,” Mathur said, sometimes not joining the family until the last patient left at midnight.

“That was my first exposure to medicine, and I think it really inspired me,” said Mathur, who also was influenced by the long-term relationships and the trust that her mother, a primary care doctor in the Bronx, had with her patients.

“I think both of those experiences combined to inspire me from a young age to know that this is what I want to do,” Mathur said.

It took Rachel Ingraham, who matched into the University of California, San Francisco-East Bay in general surgery, a little longer than most of her classmates to arrive at Match Day. Before entering medical school in 2019, the Minnesota native had spent four years as a research assistant at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, followed by four years at Boston Medical Center, first as a patient experience coordinator and then as one of three patient advocates at the hospital.

Her healthcare experiences convinced Ingraham that as a physician she wanted to care for the most vulnerable patients, while being a healthcare leader focused on medical ethics. Ingraham will receive a combined MD/MBA from BU along with a MS in bioethics from Harvard. Work on her master’s degrees, and a year off to care for her ailing grandfather, lengthened her time in medical school. Ingraham envisions a future in academia and a practice as a general surgeon, with a focus on shaping healthcare policy and ethics.

“It’s a beautiful city,” Ingraham said of San Francisco, but it was the Oakland-area community she’d be serving that drew her to the program.

“The culture there is so unique, and the patient population definitely aligns with my values, and who I am. I look forward to being very well trained there. I know that they are just top-notch and I am confident I will come out as a really great surgeon,” Ingraham said.

“Hold on to your values and remember that MD that you earned will make people listen to you…so use that microphone wisely,” said Angela Jackson, MD, associate dean of student affairs. “You are ready because of all the hard work that you put in and wherever that envelope takes you, your patients will be lucky to have you.”

I’m so excited for what lies ahead,” said Nicholas King, who matched into the University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School general surgery residency program. King also had some gap years before entering medical school. Following graduation from Yale University where he majored in cell biology with a computational focus, King, who is from Cambridge, Massachusetts, worked for three years as a respite case manager at Healthcare for the Homeless, responsible for planning discharges for patients from the medical respite facility to a substance use program or transitional housing.

“It was very challenging work, and I have a ton of respect for the people who do it,” he said. “I learned a lot about barriers to care, things like people not having physical time to get to their appointments, or having other obligations, like work or childcare, or other things going on in their life,” said King.

“You all have been enormously resilient, passionate about helping others, and deeply committed to your goals. I am really grateful to have known all of you,” Kristen Goodell, MD, associate dean of admissions, said to the students before they opened their envelopes.

“I’m really looking forward to continuing to learn more and treating patients. I’m really happy,” said fourth-year medical student Ana Paula Gushken, who is from Sao Paulo, Brazil, and comes from an extended family of physicians. She matched into a pediatric residency at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx, New York.

Gushken’s sister Fernanda also is a medical student, but in Brazil. She joined her sister at BU Friday to open their Match Day announcements together. The sister’s embraced and joined the choruses of screams and shouts around them as Fernanda matched into the University of Miami in psychiatry.

Their mother is a pediatrician, father an OB/GYN, and aunts and uncles on both sides of the family are doctors, too.

“From my experience, I think it’s hard to grow up and not be amazed and see how amazing medicine is—that you can really make a difference and take care of people in the most vulnerable moments in their lives,” said Ana Paula, who earned a BS in biomedical engineering and early acceptance into medical school through BU’s Modular Medical/Dental Integrated Curriculum program.

“I was really excited to be able to continue here at BU, because I think what’s unique is the focus on advocacy and serving underserved populations,” she said.

“Medicine will challenge you; it will shape you, and it will sometimes exhaust you. But the passion and values that brought you to this school of medicine will sustain you. Hold on to them and take the time to care for yourself. Continue to live by the words ‘I can do it,’ because you can,” said Heather Miselis, MD, associate dean of alumni affairs.

Following graduation in May, 39 medical students will be staying in Massachusetts, including 14 at BMC.

New York (34), California (26) and Pennsylvania (12)) were the next most popular states. The class matched in a range of programs, with the top specialties being internal medicine (50), pediatrics (21), emergency medicine and surgery (14 each) and anesthesiology (10).

During the festivities Sheri Fink, MD, PhD, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author of the nonfiction book Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital about choices made in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, was announced as the convocation speaker for the MD/PhD ceremony, and the MD Class of 2025 selected Richard Wu as their student speaker.

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