Oh, the places they’ll go: KU medical students celebrate Match Day surprises

The days leading up to Match Day are a time of reflection for many fourth-year medical students — and also a time of suspense.

The day represents success after four challenging years of medical school. It’s also a revelation, in which students are told where they’ll spend the next several years of their lives.

On Friday, at the same moment as other medical students across the United States, University of Kansas School of Medicine students learned where they’ll complete the next phases of their journeys toward practicing medicine. After finding out where they matched at 11 a.m., students gathered for spirited celebrations with family and friends at each of the school’s campuses in Kansas City, Wichita and Salina.

This year, 184 KU students matched in 23 different specialties. About 40% of those students will stay in Kansas to begin their clinical training. The remainder will fan out to 29 other states from coast to coast.

“It’s crazy that this day is finally here,” said KU School of Medicine-Wichita student Maggie Ziegler. “One of those special parts about Match Day is seeing my friends’ dreams come true after seeing how hard they’ve worked over the past four years. I’m so happy to be blessed to know so many amazing people who are going to be doctors all over the country.”

Ziegler matched in pediatrics at Boston Children’s Hospital, the primary pediatric teaching affiliate of Harvard University’s medical school — her No. 1 choice.

“It was really a dream come true to see that name on my computer screen today,” she said.

After graduation from medical school, completing a residency under the supervision of a senior physician is required to become a licensed, independently practicing doctor. Residencies typically last three to seven years, depending on the specialty.

During their final year of medical school, students apply and interview with residency programs. Applicants and residency programs make confidential lists of their preferences. A nonprofit organization called the National Resident Matching Program then uses a computerized algorithm to match applicants to residencies, filling a total of over 41,000 positions this year.

With few exceptions, matches are secret until the third Friday of March, when future doctors across the United States learn where they’ll go next.

Kansas City

One of 107 KU School of Medicine-Kansas City campus students to match Friday, Jonah Elyachar approached the microphone with his envelope still sealed.

Rather than peek ahead of time to learn where he matched, Elyachar read aloud for himself, his family and hundreds of other attendees that he’d matched in family medicine at the University of Missouri-Columbia.

“I wanted everyone to share the thrill of it,” he said.

Elyachar said years of working with the homeless population in Kansas City inspired him to pursue family medicine, noting that Missouri is working on a street medicine program.

“That feels like the most effective way I can continue to do that work,” he said. “It’s a population that needs to be served.”

Cradling his one-month-old daughter in his hands, Michael Braman announced he matched in internal medicine at University of Utah Health.

Braman said he and his wife, Toni, were excited to be in a beautiful area to raise their daughter — wearing a blue Jayhawks outfit for Friday’s celebration — and pursue outdoor activities they enjoy.

“We’re over the moon,” he said.

Helena Szymborski was thrilled to match in obstetrics and gynecology at KU, where she already has gotten to know faculty and residents during her time as a medical student.

“I get to stay ‘home,’” Szymborski said, adding that though she’ll continue on the same campus, Match Day represents new beginnings in her medical career.

On the other side of the process, KU faculty members also celebrate Match Day, sometimes by learning they will continue to work with some of their current students when they become residents. That’s the case with Szymborski and KU School of Medicine obstetrics and gynecology program director Kelli Krase, M.D.

“We have a stellar match class,” Krase said. “To finally figure out who is going to come and be the future of our program — there’s nothing else like it.”

Wichita

At the KU School of Medicine-Wichita campus, 71 students matched into residencies. The day was a “full-circle moment” for Kavya Natesan, who matched in emergency medicine at Baylor University Medical Center.

Natesan began scribing in an emergency room when she started college, a job she has continued for the past decade, including four years working in clinical research between college and medical school.

“What really draws me to emergency medicine is that you have to be absolutely prepared for anything and everything as soon as you walk in those doors,” she said. “You don’t know what’s going to happen.”

During her residency at Baylor, Natesan is excited to build the skill set she’ll need to be ready.

Growing up in Liberal, Kansas, Bumi Braimah was inspired by his mother, an outpatient internal medicine physician. He enjoyed college classes revealing how the body works on a molecular and cellular level, and seeing that applied during shadowing “sealed the deal” for him to pursue a career in medicine.

Braimah’s mother, along with his father and other supporters, joined him in Wichita Friday when he announced that he’d matched in internal medicine-pediatrics at KU in Wichita.

“It’s very surreal,” Braimah said. “It almost hasn’t completely set in yet, but all the hard work is paying off.”

Salina

At the KU School of Medicine-Salina campus — the smallest four-year medical education site in the country — all six fourth-year students matched into residencies, including two in Kansas and four in other states.

Joslyn Dinkel is excited to be staying in Kansas for her residency, where she won’t be far from her future career. She learned Friday that she matched in obstetrics and gynecology at HCA Healthcare in Kansas City.

As a Kansas Medical Student Loan recipient, Dinkel plans to practice in rural Kansas after her residency. 

“I know that I want to serve rural communities,” she said. “That’s something that’s really near and dear to my heart, helping underserved communities in rural areas. It can be hard for women there to get the care that they need.”

Emma Renwick’s grandfather was a KU School of Medicine graduate who practiced family medicine in Salina and Minneapolis, Kansas, inspiring her to pursue a career as a physician.

“It has been an honor to learn medicine in the same community he once served,” Renwick said.

Though Renwick’s grandfather is no longer living, her grandmother was in the audience Friday when Renwick shared that she’d matched in internal medicine at the University of Iowa Health Care Medical Center. Renwick said she looks forward to having a clinic-based practice where she can build relationships with patients, like her grandfather once did as a rural family doctor.

Saeed Masumi had a long and winding road to medical school, but he hopes that Kansas is where he can stay. Masumi matched into general surgery at KU.

Masumi’s family fled violence in Afghanistan when he was just four, moving to Pakistan and Indonesia before being granted asylum in the United States when he was 17, he said. He earned a GED diploma and took his first college classes at Johnson County Community College. Wanting to pursue a career in which he could help other people, he began his pre-med journey.

“As a refugee I have had lots of hardships and lots of decisions which changed my life, but then the best decision I made was to move to Salina,” he said. “I don’t have words for how nice the people in rural Kansas have been for me.”

“This journey is really exciting.”