“Match” Madness

^{Pictured from left: Kaitlyn Child, Stuti Agrawal, and Marie Fong celebrate their matches with NYITCOM-Arkansas Associate Professor and Associate Dean Brookshield Laurent, D.O.}

On March 21, members of the College of Osteopathic Medicine’s (NYITCOM) Class of 2025 gathered at events on Long Island and in Arkansas to receive small, white envelopes. Though the envelopes appeared unremarkable, each contained a letter with a major revelation: where the soon-to-be physicians will complete their residency training.

NYITCOM students join thousands of medical students across the country in discovering their residency “matches” on the third Friday of March each year. This much-anticipated annual event, known as Match Day, is a rite of passage representing the culmination of students’ medical school experiences and the next chapter of their training and medical careers.

After completing medical school, physicians must undergo a residency to obtain their license to practice medicine in the United States. Residencies typically last three to seven years, depending on the specialty. During their final year of medical school, students apply and interview for residencies. Once they have completed their interviews, students rank their preferred programs, and the programs rank the preferred candidates they have interviewed. An algorithm is then used to match candidates with programs based on rankings. The results are kept top secret from both the future doctors and matching hospitals until they are opened.

Anticipation filled the Crest Hollow Country Club in Woodbury, N.Y., and the Embassy Suites by Hilton Jonesboro Red Wolf Convention Center in Jonesboro, Ark., where NYITCOM’s soon-to-be physicians gathered. At noon EST, they ripped open their envelopes to the sound of cheers.

The Class of 2025 secured residencies at impressive institutions such as the Mayo Clinic, Georgetown University, and many others. NYITCOM students also matched into competitive specialties, including psychiatry, dermatology, orthopedic surgery, pediatric neurology, interventional radiology, and others.

Many future physicians from NYITCOM-Arkansas will also go on to provide access to medically underserved communities. The Class of 2025 is the sixth class for the Jonesboro-based medical school, which opened in 2016 to train physicians to address the growing physician shortage in Arkansas and the Mississippi Delta region. Delivering on this mission, more than half of the Class of 2025 was placed into programs that will keep them in Arkansas, a targeted Delta state, or a state contiguous to Arkansas.

Among these soon-to-be-physicians is Kelsey Vinson, a Jonesboro native who earned her undergraduate degree from Arkansas State University, the campus on which NYITCOM-Arkansas is located, before attending medical school. Vinson was matched into a family medicine residency at UAMS Northeast in Jonesboro, allowing her to continue her medical training in her hometown.

“I was born and raised here, and this community means so much to me and my family,” Vinson said. “You never know where this process can take you, but my priority was to stay home. I’m just so happy that I’ve been given the opportunity to do that.”

Here is a sample of the many impressive residencies earned by NYITCOM’s Class of 2025:

• Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center—Internal Medicine
• Mayo Clinic—Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation
• MedStar Washington Hospital Center/Georgetown University—Emergency Medicine
• NYU Langone Hospital–Brooklyn—Neurology
• Temple University—General Surgery
• University of California, Irvine—Family Medicine
• University of Massachusetts—Pathology
• Yale New Haven Health—Pediatrics

Casey Pearce contributed to this article.