A Recap: Match Day Brings Unique Personal Stories to Light

March means more than basketball to the majority of medical students, faculty and staff throughout the U.S.

Each year, Match Day is held in March, when graduating medical students nationwide gather in a celebration at their respective medical colleges to learn where they will complete their residency training. Students apply for residencies in their programs of choice, hoping to be selected for their preferred hospital and specialty during this event.

The "match," managed by the National Residency Matching Program (NRMP), has moved to the third Friday in March, starting with this year at 11:30 a.m., Friday, March 16, in Medical Sciences Building Room E-351. Previously, it was held the third Thursday in March.

But regardless of what day it is held, the event is a cherished, exciting and fun ceremony for graduates, each of whom has their own personal story to add to the mix. Below is a sampling of stories, relaying student triumph and celebration from past UC College of Medicine Match Day events:

Match Day 2007

The transition between years three and four of medical school is tough enough. Battling cancer at the same time seems nearly impossible. But UC medical student Rob Johnson took on both challenges and passed.

Johnson, 32, was completing his third year, wrapping up a surgery clinical rotation and trying to decide what field of medicine he wanted to focus on when he learned he had testicular cancer.

Read more.

Match Day 2008

UC’s Philip To matched with an orthopedic surgery residency at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. But successfully matching in such a competitive program was bittersweet to the fourth-year student who had recently lost his father to colon cancer.

To’s father was diagnosed with cancer in 2003—Year One of medical school—and died in December 2007. To had only one week between his father’s funeral and the beginning of a month-long stretch of 16 residency program interviews.

Read more.

Match Day 2009

At 26, twins Tony and David Sheyn moved apart for the very first time in their lives—by choice.

The brothers, both fourth-year UC College of Medicine students, picked different geographic sites for their residency programs: Tony in ear, nose and throat surgery at Wayne State University in Detroit and David in radiology at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland.

Read more.

Match Day 2010

It was a double dose of congratulations for UC medical student Melissa Korb on Match Day 2010. That’s when Korb, 27, not only learned she’d be conducting her general surgery residency training at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) Medical Center, but she’d be doing so as the wife of Rob Dempsey, a 2009 UC College of Medicine alumnus.

Read more.

Match Day 2011

The 2011 Match Day event was the last one in which Laura Wexler, MD, played a key role in organization as associate dean for student affairs and admissions, but it was a joyous one for her as she was able to see her daughter, Eleanor Glass, participate in the event and match in the family medicine residency program at Christ Hospital.

Read more.

What will Match Day 2012 bring? Check out Featured next week for highlights or tune into the live streaming at 11:30 a.m., Friday, by logging into MedOneStop.