Match Day – the annual rite of passage that ignites a senior medical student’s future – took place on Friday, March 16, 2018. Beginning at noon EDT, medical students in the University of Vermont Larner College of Medicine’s Class of 2018 and soon-to-be-doctors from across the U.S. and world learned which U.S. residency program they have been matched to for the next three to seven years. (Watch the Match Day highlights video and link to the Class of 2018 Residency Match list.)

At UVM’s Larner College of Medicine, the celebration began at around 11:40 a.m., when members of the Class of 2018 processed down the hall of the Given building, following bagpiper H. James Wallace, M.D.'88, a medical alumnus and radiation oncologist, into the Health Science Research Facility’s Hoehl Gallery. A video livestream allowed off-site students, family and friends to participate in the event’s excitement. 

How does The Match work? The National Resident Matching Program (NRMP) uses a computerized mathematical algorithm to align the preferences of applicants with the preferences of program directors in order to produce the best possible outcome for filling training positions available at U.S. teaching hospitals. The NRMP is expecting the 2018 Main Residency Match to be the largest in history.

Before the Match results were revealed, attendees heard remarks from UVM Provost David Rosowsky, Ph.D.; Senior Associate Dean for Medical Education William Jeffries, Ph.D.; Larner College of Medicine Dean Frederick Morin, M.D.; Professor of Medicine Laurie Leclair, M.D., course director for Cardiovascular, Renal and Respiratory Systems; and Class of 2018 President Stephanie Alexis Brooks. Christa Zehle, M.D., associate dean for students, and members of the Office of Medical Student Education surprised the audience with a Harry Potter-themed sorting hat skit prior to the delivery of the Match envelopes. On stage, a group of medical students randomly selected envelopes and announced each respective student’s name for reading in public or private. 

Get a glimpse of some of the Class of 2018 students who matched March 16 here:

• Iowa native Maggie Graham ’18 knew that going to medical school with a spouse and three children would be difficult, but credits her wife – “the most supportive person on earth” – open communication, and asking friends and family for help along the way with getting her to this point. “Match Day and graduation feel like they are just as much about all of them as about me,” says Graham, a 2016 Freeman Foundation Legacy Medical Scholar who is grateful for how Vermont embraced her and her family. She matched to a family medicine residency at UVM Medical Center..
• The son of Vietnamese refugees, Tinh Huynh ’18 survived the tragic death of his brother in a Texas gang shooting and many struggles prior to college and medical school. Despite the stress of these experiences, he says that “Being where I am now, I am definitely happy I chose a career in medicine, which is full of meaningful experiences on a daily basis.” He matched in anesthesiology, a field he finds especially fun and challenging, because it involves work with all patient populations and interacts with every specialty, at University of Texas Southwestern Medical School.
• Astia Roper-Batker ’18, originally from Minneapolis, Minnesota, has a love of science she inherited from her father, a public school science teacher, that led her to pursue medicine after serving as a research coordinator for smoking cessation trials. She is grateful for the challenges she found in Vermont – rigorous medical school coursework and hiking – and opportunities for leadership and service, including a Schweitzer Fellows project with classmate Susannah Kricker to promote health literacy among Latino dairy farm workers. Recently married, she will leave for a six-week global health elective in Uganda on March 18. Roper-Batker matched to an internal medicine residency at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania.

A total of 109 students from the Larner College of Medicine participated in the main Match on March 16, 2018. Five students in the Class of 2018 have already learned of their residency locations through early specialty matches and the Military Match. Students in the Class of 2018 will earn their medical degrees at Commencement on May 20, 2018, and will begin residency orientation in mid- to late June.

Find more information about the Larner College of Medicine’s Class of 2018 Match Day.