Match Day 2013: Joy and relief at finally knowing

New venue, same results; most students match in primary care residencies

Shouts of joy and relief filled the room as UMass Medical School’s 123 graduating medical students learned where they would spend the next four to six years in residency training. Match Day, an annual rite of passage that happens all over the country on the same day at the same exact time, took on a new look this year at UMMS, as students, family and friends gathered in the first-floor atrium of the Albert Sherman Center, the newly opened 512,000-square-foot education and research building that represents a new era of research, education and community life on campus.

Mai-Lan Rogoff, MD, who is retiring as associate dean for student affairs in June, distributed the envelopes for her 20th and final time, noting that once again, about half of students matched in primary care residencies. That number jumps to 70 percent when obstetrics/gynecology and emergency medicine residencies are included.

Just this week, U.S. News and World Report ranked UMMS ninth in the country for primary care education.

Half of graduating students will train in Massachusetts, with 22 staying at UMass Medical School to train with clinical partner UMass Memorial Health Care. Twenty five students will go into internal medicine; 21 into pediatrics; 12 into family medicine; and 6 into medicine/pediatrics. An unusually large number of students matched into anesthesiology and dermatology—seven each.

Match Day 2013 -- a slideshow: