Obinnaya “Obi” Okereke and Karen Ghobrial were among the 172 matching UMass Chan Medical School students packed into the Medical School lobby on Friday, March 20, clutching blue envelopes as they anxiously waited to see where they would serve their residencies.
As participants in the Baccalaureate MD Pathway Program, Okereke and Ghobrial have been part of the UMass Chan community since they were undergraduates, Okereke at UMass Amherst and Ghobrial at UMass Lowell.
“BaccMD was the reason I came into medical school,” said Ghobrial, who matched in pediatrics at UMass Chan. “Without the program, I would not have been given the same opportunities and the same path to lead me to where I am right now.”
The BaccMD program provides students at the UMass undergraduate campuses, Worcester State University and Framingham State University the opportunity to apply for provisional acceptance to the T.H. Chan School of Medicine at UMass Chan. Open to students from economically disadvantaged backgrounds and students whose parents did not graduate from a four-year college, the program offers students a broad range of academic and clinical immersion opportunities in preparation for med school. Since 2012, 60 students who have completed the program have gone on to medical school, including 45 at UMass Chan (seven of whom are enrolling this fall).
“The mentorship I had throughout the BaccMD program molded me and shaped me into the kind of person I am today,” said Okereke, who matched in anesthesiology at Boston University Medical Center.
Okereke’s parents immigrated to the U.S. from Nigeria and raised their family in Massachusetts. Ghobrial was born in Egypt and grew up in Chelmsford.
Hear them reflect on their journey to and through medical school in this video.
Class of 2026 members Marcus McKenzie, who matched in internal medicine at UMass Chan, and Elisah Huynh, who matched in ophthalmology at UMass Chan, are also alums of the BaccMD program.
