A perfect match: Med students reflect on their residency 'match day' experiences

Medical students from UNC seeking residency and fellowship training got matched with medical programs across the United States in late March.

This day, known as “Match Day,” was celebrated by medical students at UNC and students across the nation. 

Dr. Beat Steiner, senior associate dean for clinical curriculum and medical student education at the UNC School of Medicine, said the matching process involves both the medical program and the student ranking their preferences. Though medical schools have internal ranking systems, the match process aims to puts students' preferences first.

“If a student ranks a program first, that takes precedent over the program,” Steiner said. “The match process is to the student’s advantage.”

Tiffany Dyer and Megan Gurjar are two UNC medical school students who were matched with their respective programs on “Match Day.” Both said they were satisfied with the programs they matched with.

“For me, it was a thing that finally meant I could do what I wanted to do,” Gurjar, who was matched to the urology field at the Medical College of Wisconsin, said.

Dyer was matched with Rush University in Chicago, Illinois, where she will be working in the physical medicine and rehabilitation field. 

Dyer said that building community was essential when it came to her match. She said it is important to build relationships with her patients rather than simply allowing them to be patients she helps in the hospital.

“I got into medicine through community outreach,” Dyer said. “I need my career to be a lot more than just seeing patients in the hospital.”

When it comes to her career goals, Dyer said she is open to a variety of options.

“I have a feeling I’ll go through residency and end up staying general so I get to dabble a little bit in all of the fields,” Dyer said.

Gurjar said she is also focused on building community, but in a slightly different way. She said urologic care is needed in rural communities because, for the most part, urology is centered around larger cities. She said she wants to help people in the smaller areas have access to urologic care.

“My main career goals would be to provide care to folks who might not have access to regular urologic care,” Gurjar said. “I would love to come back to somewhere suburban or rural that doesn’t have as much access to urologists.” 

Steiner said though the match process is a stressful event for involved students, it helps students grow in their connections to communities.

“Coming to a school like UNC that has a mission of service maximizes your chance of matching your passions to the needs of the community,” Steiner said. “Follow your passion and pay attention to what the needs of the community are.”

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