It’s not every day that you’re handed the next three to five years of your life in an envelope. Yet for thousands of medical students around the country this is exactly what happens at the annual event known as Match Day.
This year's Match Day was held on Friday, and at 9 a.m. dozens of graduating Stanford students stood shoulder-to shoulder-with their families, friends and professors as they each opened a slim red envelope to learn where they’ll be doing their residencies.
My colleague Tracie White witnessed this medical school rite of passage firsthand. From her report from the field:
By 10 a.m., each of the 77 graduating medical students had their own stories to tell about where they would be going for residencies after the years of hard work and the nerve-wracking process of applying for residencies....
When tallied, the day’s final results showed that 75 percent of the students received their first choice of program, and 90 percent got one of their top three choices. The highest number of matches, 25, were to Stanford Medicine, followed by 19 matching to the Harvard University hospitals, and four to the University of California-San Francisco.
“We are all so tremendously proud of you,” Lloyd Minor, MD, dean of the School of Medicine, told the soon-to-be doctors.
Previously: Ready, set, match: It’s Match Day!, Match Day at Stanford sizzles with successful matches & good cheer, Stanford Medicine’s Match Day, in pictures and It’s Match Day: Good luck, medical students!
Photo by Norbert von der Groeben
