Match Day is the annual event in which fourth-year medical students across the nation simultaneously learn where they will be doing their residency training. Match Day occurs on the third Thursday of March every year.
“It is a national sort of dating service between residency programs and fourth-year medical students,” said Dr. Maggi O’Brien, associate dean of student affairs at the University of South Alabama College of Medicine. “The people here are nervous. It’s a fun day, and we’re always very pleased about how it turns out.”
Dr. Samuel Strada, dean of the University of South Alabama College of Medicine, said Match Day is an important milestone in medical students’ careers.
“It has an enormous impact on their future,” he said. “It is important for the fourth-year medical students to represent not only themselves, but also their class and the USA College of Medicine. We are very confident of the wonderful job they are going to do.”
Dr. Strada also said that about one-third of physicians practicing in Mobile and Baldwin County did their residency training and/or medical education at USA.
USA medical student Marcus Bell, after matching in internal medicine at USA, said he is happy with the Match Day results. “I feel great about it, and I couldn’t have asked for more,” he said.
The matching program also allows couples to form pairs of choices on their primary rank order lists. The couple will match to the most preferred pair of programs on the rank order lists where each partner has been offered a position.
Sarah Gean and Ethan Gore will be tying the knot this Saturday – two days after Match Day. “It’s a pretty busy week,” Gore said. “We can definitely feel the pressure.”
Both Gean and Gore matched at the University of South Alabama – Gean in radiology and Gore in neurology. “We are so happy that we can be together,” Gene said. “All our family is in town, and it’s a really great week for us.”
Margaret Ege, a fourth-year medical student at USA, said her education at USA will have a great impact on her future. “It really is a good preparation step for the rest of our medical careers,” she said. “I have gotten a lot of hands on experience that I don’t think I would have had anywhere else.”
Ege matched in psychiatry at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. “It was my top choice, and I’m very excited,” she said. “This day is the culmination of four years of hard work and dedication.”
Jamie Caudill, another USA medical student, matched in the combined internal medicine/pediatrics program at USA. “It’s just a happy day for everybody. USA was my No. 1 choice, and this could not have been a better day for me.”
Bana Kashani matched in OB/GYN at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, just a short distance from her hometown. “The support I have had here at USA is amazing,” she said. “Match Day starts a new chapter of my life, and I am so thrilled.”
“Today is about the students, and that’s the reason why we are here,” said Dr. Thomas Montgomery, residency program director for the department of internal medicine. “We wish all of them the very best.”
