Share this story
On Match Day at UMass Medical School, Michael Buckner and Emily Fan embraced joyfully upon reading the letters telling them where they will begin their medical careers. The graduating medical students, who met at UMMS and are marrying next year, are delighted to be staying close to their families in Massachusetts. Buckner will be a diagnostic radiology resident at Brigham & Women’s Hospital in Boston, and Fan matched into the single vascular surgery slot at UMass Medical School.
“It’s great having a partner during medical school,” said Buckner. “I couldn’t have done it without her.”
Buckner and Fan are among the 112 members of the School of Medicine Class of 2018 who learned their residency destinations on Friday, March 16, during the Match Day celebration. Match Day is the annual, nationwide pairing of graduating medical students with postgraduate residency training programs. The National Resident Matching Program makes the matches through a complex algorithm that takes into account the preferences of both the students and the residency programs to which they have applied.
In keeping with the institution’s mission in primary care, 44 UMMS students matched in internal medicine, family medicine and pediatrics, representing 41 percent of the class. Fourteen students are going into emergency medicine, and five into obstetrics & gynecology. Fifty-seven members of the class are staying in Massachusetts, including 14 at UMMS, fulfilling the medical school’s mission to care for the citizens of the commonwealth. Sonia Chimienti, MD, associate dean for student affairs, also noted record numbers in several specialties, with seven in anesthesiology, 10 in psychiatry, seven in diagnostic radiology and six in orthopedic surgery.
The class opened their envelopes simultaneously in a room packed with family, friends, faculty and fellow students. Every match is an individual milestone in each student’s unique path to a career in medicine.
Jonathan Quang began his journey while he was a teenager at Worcester North High School. There he participated in the Worcester Pipeline Collaborative, a collaboration with UMass Medical School. Among his formative experiences were advanced placement biology classes in the labs of UMMS researchers including Nobel Llaureate Craig Mello, and an internship shadowing a UMMS physician.
“Both my mom and my dad have been huge inspirations for me,” said Quang, whose parents are from Vietnam. “They both worked extremely hard and thanks to them, I was fortunate enough to be able to focus on my dreams and endeavors.”
Now looking forward to an emergency medicine residency at Reading Hospital Medical Center in Pennsylvania, Quang has reciprocated the support he received, serving as a mentor for high school students in the Worcester Pipeline Collaborative.
“It is such a rewarding experience to be able to go back to my old high school and tutor and mentor students who are where I was 10 years ago,” he said.
For Marie-Michele Sainvil, whose journey through medical school was featured in the March 16 Boston Herald, matching in medicine-pediatrics at University of Rochester Strong Memorial Hospital in New York, is the culmination of years of extraordinary determination and hard work. She came to the United States from Haiti without her parents at age 7. Match Day is the first major educational milestone she has been able to share with her parents since bringing them to Worcester in 2010.
After graduating from Smith College, Sainvil worked at Dana Farber Cancer Institute in Boston to gain clinical experience while providing financial support to her family.
“Once my parents successfully immigrated to the United States, I was able to pursue my dream to matriculate into medical school,” she said. “My family has been and continues to be my primary support system. They will continue to sustain me on this wonderful journey.”
Hear more from Sainvil in the video above, see scenes from the celebration in the slide show below and take in the full UMMS Match Day proceedings on Facebook Live.
