UT medical students learn of residency destinations on Match Day

3/15/2013

Shrieks of joy filled the air as 165 medical students from the University of Toledo tore open envelopes to learn where they will serve their residencies during a ceremony today.

The 2013 Residency Match Reception – a time-honored annual ceremony for fourth-year medical students - was held at the Pinnacle in Maumee. Known as Match Day, the annual event takes place nationwide after a computerized program administered by the National Resident Matching Program puts together graduating students and academic hospitals, based on how both groups ranks their choices.

“I’m going to Kaweah Delta Health Care District in Visalia, California,” Daniel Fong, 25, of Bowling Green managed to announce before he was mobbed by happy friends and family who hugged and pulled at him to pose for photos.

Mr. Fong, whose residency begins on July 1, is specializing in emergency medicine.

During the ceremony, Chancellor Jeffrey P. Gold pointed out that the fourth-year medical students in the College of Medicine and Life Sciences at the University of Toledo matched into 164 positions in 22 different medical specialties.

The most popular fields of study were pediatrics, internal medicine, anesthesiology, and emergency medicine.

Students spend months interviewing at residency programs across the country, searching for the ideal place to learn their chosen specialties, said Mr. Gold, who is also the dean of the College of Medicine and Life Sciences. Students ranked their top institutional choices, and academic medical centers across the country ranked their top student choices.

Depending on the specialty, residencies can last between three to seven years, and thus have a major impact on the training and lives of the medical students. Residents are licensed physicians who care for patients under the supervision of attending physicians.