Cheers, tears and smiles make UC Match Day 2019 memorable

Amber Young, 25, of Cleveland matched into obstetrics and gynecology at the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island.

The fourth-year medical student at the University of Cincinnati (UC) College of Medicine got her top choice. Her boyfriend stood at her side in Kresge Auditorium as she opened the envelope that would reveal where she will spend the next four years in residency training.

Cheers from her classmates and a few tears from Young made the day truly special. It was all part of Match Day, an annual event managed by the National Residency Matching Program (NRMP), which pairs the preference of medical students with those of residency programs to create optimal matches.

“It has been a day full of emotion and excitement for my classmates and myself,” says Young. “We were seeing where everybody is going to be for the next phase of our training. OB/GYN is the culmination of everything. You get to be the primary caregivers for many women. You get to do surgery. You get to be there for some of the most important moments of their lives like delivering babies. It encompasses of the care of these women and it’s something I want to do.”

“I think a lot of people have been nervous, but excited to find out where they are going to be,” says Young.

At UC, 183 medical students successfully matched into specialties across the country.

“This was a phenomenal Match Day with a lot happy faces,” says Aurora Bennett, MD, associate dean of student affairs in the UC College of Medicine. “Our students matched to some of their top programs across the country. All of our couples matched together so this was an extremely successful and joyful match.”

UC students matched to programs at such schools and hospitals as Harvard, Johns Hopkins, Duke, Mayo Clinic, Cleveland Clinic, Washington University in St. Louis, UCLA, Case Western, Vanderbilt and UT Southwestern.

Results from UC indicate that:

Of the 183 matched students, 48 will do at least part of their residency at hospitals in Greater Cincinnati. Of those, 28 will stay at UC Medical Center, seven at Christ Hospital, six at Cincinnati Children’s, three each at Good Samaritan and Jewish hospitals and one at Bethesda North Hospital.

The most popular primary residencies were Internal Medicine with 28 students, Emergency Medicine and Family Medicine, both with 18 students, and Pediatrics with 16 students.

Some specialties require students to complete preliminary residencies of one or two years of training prior to entering an advanced period of specialty training. These preliminary residences may also be counted in the final Match Day tally.

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Photos by Colleen Kelley/AHC