Match Day Maps the Future of UAMS Seniors

By Nate Hinkel

 Matt Parker celebrates with his girlfriend Lacey Perrin, who both matched at UAMS.

More than 26,000 medical students nationwide learned the fate of their future March 17 at 11 a.m.

LITTLE ROCK – The significance of Match Day being held at Little Rock’s Historic Union Station was not lost on 139 University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) senior medical students, as the rip of an envelope unveiled whether they’d be coming or going to complete the next stage of their medical training.

The annual Match Day ceremony, celebrated by senior medical students nationwide, brought the UAMS College of Medicine class of 2011 together March 17 at Next Level Events inside the renovated train station to find out where they would be serving their residencies. The tightly packed crowd of classmates, friends, family and faculty watched intently as the seniors were handed an envelope and one-by-one took their turn at the microphone under the stage lights to announce their next destination.

For some, several years of planning and hard work, culminating the last few weeks in sleepless nights and high anxiety, was ultimately capped off with sweet relief.

“I couldn’t be happier with how everything worked out for us,” said Matt Parker, who exhausted his options to ensure he would match with his year-long girlfriend, Lacey Perrin. “We felt good about the process, but you never really know until you tear open that envelope together and see it in writing.”

Parker is in the U.S. Air Force, and took special measures to make himself available for a non-military residency match, an option only nine out of about 60 applicants are granted, he said. Parker will be doing an emergency medicine residency program, while Perrin will specialize in anesthesiology, both at UAMS.

“Sweet relief,” Parker said. “Just very glad it all worked out as we hoped.”

For others, like Katie Drago, of Roseville, Calif., Match Day gives future residents the chance to get back closer to home. Drago’s envelope unveiled an internal medicine residency at Oregon Health and Science University, a three-year program that was her top choice.

“Honestly, I had no idea coming into today what this piece of paper would say,” she said. “You hope for your No. 1 choice, of course, but that doesn’t always work out. I feel like I could just faint right now I’m so happy … I have to find my dad and hug him.”

Results of the National Resident Matching Program (NRMP) are released simultaneously to more than 26,000 medical school students nationwide. A computerized system controls the selection process and matches fourth-year students with residency openings based on student preference and availability. According to NRMP, more than 94 percent of U.S. medical school seniors matched to a first-year residency position this year, while 81 percent of those students matched to one of their top three choices. Among all other types of participants, 80 percent matched to one of their top three choices. Those who did not match will have the opportunity to contact those programs with unfilled residency slots.

“Once again, one of the things that stands out to me is that nearly half of the Class of 2011 matched into primary care areas,” said Dick Wheeler, M.D., executive associate dean for academic affairs in the UAMS College of Medicine. “That is traditionally a particular strength of UAMS and this year is no different.”