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Med students get glimpse of future
At right, Matt Eckerman watches on as Sarah Flaherty opens her envelope to find that her residency will be at Harvard Medical SchoolÕs Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center during the Marshall Joan C. Edwards School of Medicine Match Day on Thursday, March 18, 2010, at the Memorial Student Center.
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HUNTINGTON -- If you blink, you could miss Match Day. At least the exciting part.
After four years of hard work and a lengthy application process that often takes them all over the country, medical students find out in a matter of seconds where they will spend the next three to five years of their lives.
The excitement unfolded Thursday for about 60 fourth-year students attending Marshall University's Joan C. Edwards School of Medicine. They're among about 18,000 medical students nationwide who received letters informing them where they've been "matched" for their residencies.
It goes like this: The letters are handed out and students gather at the front of the room for pictures. At the stroke of noon, students tear into the envelopes, and seconds later come the cheers, tears of relief and the fists in the air.
"This is probably the biggest day in their entire four years, maybe even bigger than graduation," said Marie Veitia, associate dean of students at the medical school. "Instead of graduating and becoming doctors, today they're becoming pediatricians, internists. ... It's a huge day."
For some, the good news was that they'd be staying at Marshall. For others, it was the chance to hone their medical skills elsewhere in the country. According to the university, the students are in 14 specialties and will do their residencies in 14 states total, nearly all east of the Mississippi River, with two in Texas.
For Sarah Flaherty, who plans to go into emergency medicine, it was news of a tremendous opportunity. She'll be doing her residency at Harvard Medical School's Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.
"The opportunities are amazing up there, and Boston is such a great city," said Flaherty, who is originally from Massachusetts but most recently has lived in Charleston. "And for someone going into emergency medicine, it's so important to be in an urban area."
She said she's just thankful for a strong education at Marshall that helped her qualify.
David Francke was just as excited Thursday to learn he'd be staying for a residency at Marshall. The 29-year-old has a focus on internal medicine, and is glad he won't have to displace his wife, Becky, a pharmacist for Rite Aid, and their 4-month-old son, David.
"We're happy," he said. "That makes a lot of things more simple. It's where we wanted to be."
Aimee Neill also got her first choice, a residency in family medicine at Spartanburg Regional Healthcare System in South Carolina. Her long-term goal is to do primary care in third-world countries, but she is pleased to be heading to Spartanburg for now.
"It's a very strong program," she said. "And it's close enough to here, but with warmer weather."
Among the group of students, about 60 percent have a focus on primary care, Veitia said. That's about three times the national average. Marshall also has about 2.5 times the average percentage of students going into pediatrics and 1.5 times the average percentage going into obstetrics/gynecology, according to information from the medical school.
Patty Patel is thrilled about her residency in pediatrics at the University of Kentucky because that's where her fiance, Vishal Vaghela, is in his second year of residency already. They're getting married in May.
"This is perfect," she said. "I want to cry, but I won't."
Marshall also is proud of student Amul Bhalodi -- the first student to get a match in a urology residency in more than 20 years, Veitia said. He'll be doing his residency at New York Medical College, with long-term plans to come back home to West Virginia and join his father's practice in Beckley.
"(New York) was my first choice," he said. "I rotated there, and I've always lived in West Virginia and wanted to head out."
