2016 Match Day
The Class of 2016 at the Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine celebrates Match Day. Each of the 41 fourth-year students learned they had matched with one of their requested residency programs, including three who will be commissioned into the military. Matches included some of the county's most prestigious programs.
[Narrator]: It's pretty darn simple why it's called match day. Medical students who are about to graduate are matched with residency programs. It happens nationwide at noon eastern time on the third Friday in March. Every fourth year med student opens an envelope to find out where they matched. But simple it isn't thousands of U.S and foreign medical students who wish to practice in America sign up and thousands of med students do not match.
[Scott Call, class of 2016]: So I think I just want to know at this point. I have a lot of good choices so that that's comforting, but just to find out where I'm going to be for the next four years is incredibly exciting, and I think I'll be happy no matter where I end up.
[Nikki Kumar, class of 2016]: So I was actually thinking about this morning and I was thinking about all the hours first year, second year, studying. I was thinking about the whole application process, and all the hours we put in third year and just how it's all kind of led us here.
[Narrator]: Time slows when you're waiting for big news but the clock finally catches up and it's noon.
[Audience]: Three, two, one!
[Narrator]: With that, envelopes were opened and new directions were charted for members of the class of 2016. They like every VTC class before them matched. All of them.
[Visuals of students hugging each other and loved ones]
[Katherine Hoffnagel, class of 2016]: So it was just really exciting to open it up and to see that I got, you know, where I wanted to go and that I was going to be with my boyfriend and to be doing what I really want to be doing was really exciting. It was very rewarding.
[Ehsan Dowlati, class of 2016]: That moment I was holding the envelope. It was surreal that this envelope basically held my fate for the next seven years.
[Jaclyn Dovico, class of 2016]: Well I matched into pediatrics at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, which was my number one choice, which is exactly where I wanted to be because my husband's a professor down there and we've actually been living down there, us and our two kids, and so this really wasn't my decision of where to go for residency this was a family decision. And to find out that we ended up exactly where we needed to be as a family, just I was elated. I mean my this huge weight was just lifted off my shoulders, and I'm so excited to be going back down there.
[Narrator]: Sometimes it's hard to keep in mind that these sons and daughters, boyfriends and girlfriends, moms and dads, are more than just medical students. All the hard work over the past four years required so much sacrifice from these students and their families. Hard work that finally gives them the opportunity to head into the world and practice what they've been taught.
In the end two great doctors said it best: Dr. Seuss, and Dr. Cynda Johnson.
[Cynda Johnson, founding dean]:
You're off to great places,
today is your day,
your mountain is waiting,
so get on your way.
