In the same auditorium where they gathered in August 2021 for the 21st Annual White Coat and Honor Code Ceremony at the George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences (SMHS)—marking the start of their academic medical journey—179 members of the SMHS medical doctor program Class of 2025 anxiously awaited Match Day, the moment when each would learn where they will take the next step in their training as doctors.
Soon the class—hailing from 24 states, Washington, D.C., Canada, and China—will fan out across 30 states and the District of Columbia to train among more than two dozen specialties.
Each year, medical students across the country gather at noon EDT on the third Friday of March to simultaneously open their envelopes from the National Residency Matching Program (NRMP) and discover where they will complete their medical training.
The NRMP, established in 1952, standardized the residency application process by using a blind system that pairs medical students with residency programs. This system ensures students are matched with their top choices, or as close to them as possible.
Laura Lewis, president of the MD Program Class of 2025, did her best to ease her classmates’ nerves, making light of her match experience, which, as part of the military match, took place in December. A member of the United States Navy, Lewis noted that her match day experience was much different than her classmates. Lewis, who will pursue radiology training at Navy Medical Center Portsmouth, Virginia, was on her anesthesiology rotation at GW’s Regional Medical Campus at Sinai Hospital of Baltimore when she learned of her match.
For the military match, budding physicians received their residency news via email. “They told us to expect an email around noon,” Lewis recalled. “The closer it got to 12 p.m., the more my nerves built up.”
Finally, nearly 20 minutes after noon, Lewis received a notification on her phone. “My heart was racing, and I saw the first few words: ‘Congratulations!’”
“What I want to tell you all today is that wherever you go, you’re going to be an excellent physician,” she said.
In her welcoming remarks, Barbara Lee Bass, vice president for health affairs at George Washington University, dean of SMHS and Walter A. Bloedorn Professor of Administrative Medicine, reminded the students that this was a day they would remember for the rest of their lives.
“You’re going to a place that will be thrilled to have you and will do everything it can to make you the best pediatrician, obstetrician, gynecologist, surgeon, psychiatrist—whatever you choose to be,” she said.
“I wish I were where you are now,” added Bass. “I would love to be doing this all over again. Knowing what incredible transformation you’re going have, I would love to do it all over again.”
During the first three years of medical school, students are laser-focused on academics and clinical training. In their fourth year, however, they begin to build on that foundation while turning their attention to the next step in their careers: residency training.
Weighing the pros and cons of each residency program’s reputation, research opportunities, geographical location and personal preferences can be daunting.
After an extensive interview process, students and residency program directors each submit their rankings. The NRMP then runs that data through a mathematical algorithm to pair applicants with programs. The process, according to the NRMP, is applicant-proposing, meaning student preferences initiate program placement.
“My mentors were amazing throughout the process,” said Melina Recarey, who matched at the University of Pennsylvania Hospital’s vascular surgery residency. “I really relied on them for all of their advice.”
As she ended the interview phase, recalled Recarey, she was split between several different programs, making the ranking process particularly challenging. She said her mentors from the SMHS Department of Surgery, Salim Lala, Bao-Ngoc Nguyen, and Anton Sidawy, M.P.H. ’99, “definitely offered good insight on different paths I could consider and different programs.”
For Sarah Belay, returning to Lisner Auditorium where her path to becoming a physician began was surreal. “You kind of have flashbacks to White Coat, and you realize how it wasn't so long ago, but it feels like it was because we've grown so much since that first day.”
For Belay, whose next step will be an internal medicine residency at Montefiore Medical Center, in the Bronx, New York, the day offered an opportunity to reflect.
“I’m no longer going to be in medical school, so today is kind of emotional,” she said. “I feel grateful for all the faculty and all the friends I’ve made at GW who have supported me along this journey. I’ve learned so much.”
GW Today photographers Lily Speredelozzi, Jordan Tovin, William Atkins, Florence Shen and Sarah Hochstein captured images of the event:
