Match Day Excitement

With family and friends sharing in the excitement, fourth-year students at the Tulane University School of Medicine celebrated Match Day on Thursday (March 17), each opening an envelope with the news about the future ahead. The students found out where they will complete their residencies at an event coordinated through the National Medical Resident Matching Program. As they take the next step in their medical careers after graduation, they will spend the next three to six years in training at academic medical centers in 32 states. Forty-four matched in Louisiana (23.9 percent of the class), and 77 (41.8 percent) will be in primary care programs.

Surrounded by her friends, a glowing Ashley Nitschke, second from right, celebrates her Match Day letter at the ceremony in the Hilton New Orleans Riverside Hotel. Her assignment is in the Tulane preliminary medicine program.

A joyful Hieu Hoang, left, shares the news that he matched with in the anesthesiology program at Tulane with Anh-Van Mai, who matched with the obstetrics-gynecology program at Methodist Hospital in Houston.

Heading to the University of Hawaii for a preliminary medicine program and then to the University of California–San Diego Medical Center for a training program in diagnostic radiology/research, Chris Malone is excited about his assignment. With him are his fiancée, Cristina Young, left, and his mother, Vicki Malone.

Thrilled with her match with George Washington University's internal medicine program, Akilah Jefferson, right, shows her assignment letter to friend Brenda Chao, who will be heading to Methodist Health System in Dallas for a residency in obstetrics-gynecology.