PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Emotions ran high as more than 120 students at Brown University’s Warren Alpert Medical School gathered with friends and family on Friday, March 15, to learn where they would be matched for residency, and where their path in medicine would take them next.
The Match Day celebration is an emotional endpoint for fourth-year students, as it caps years of intense study and coursework as well as an arduous nine-month residency application and interviewing process. At precisely noon, amid a balloon drop and a live band, students found out where they will spend the next several years of their lives and careers, training in their specialty.
Before students tore open the envelopes containing their matches, Dr. Mukesh K. Jain, dean of medicine and biological sciences, addressed a crowd packed into two floors of the medical school atrium.
Match Day is an opportunity to acknowledge the many sacrifices made by the students and their champions, such as faculty, family and friends, Jain said. He emphasized that no matter where the students matched, each one of them would go on to accomplish great things.
“It’s how you invest in yourself that defines you,” Jain said.
Brown medical student David Loftus said that four years ago, he was anxious about how he would perform in medical school following a decade-long gap in his formal education, including a deployment overseas as part of a Joint Special Operations Task Force. But he feels that his time at the Warren Alpert Medical School reinforced that he is on the right path.
A competitive skier and former intelligence officer in the U.S. Navy who grew up near Syracuse, New York, Loftus said he chose to pursue neurosurgery because of the opportunity to foster a strong relationship with patients.
“Although it’s a surgical subspecialty with incredible requirements of technical skill, it also demands the full spectrum of doctoring,” he said.
During the match reveal, Loftus learned the next step in his life’s adventure: the University of Virginia School of Medicine. Loftus had one word to describe his feelings:
“Ecstatic!”
Ghazal Aghagoli, who was born in Iran and immigrated to Vancouver with her family when she was 12, said her choice to specialize in obstetrics and gynecology was deeply personal.
“I fell in love with the field of OB/GYN not only because of the impact that it has on women’s health, but also due to its essential work in advocating for women's right to health care,” Aghagoli said.
