The Class of 2022 celebrated Match Day together again at last.
By Meredith Mann
Thad Woodard, left, was delighted to celebrate Match Day in person with family, friends, classmates, and faculty.
Sunshine. Selfies. Squeals of joy.
All the sights and sounds of this year’s Match Day, held on March 18th.
Were it not for the face masks everyone wore, you wouldn’t know that Match Day 2022 was happening almost exactly two years after the COVID-19 pandemic introduced “social distancing” into common parlance and forced celebrations like this online.
For the crowd gathered in the Jordan Medical Education Center atrium on this warm, sunny day, the typical Match Day energy was amped up to an even greater degree by the thrill of being able to gather in person. With community case rates of COVID-19 at low levels, and with requirements for indoor masking and rapid testing before the event, students, faculty, and their loved ones were able to safely celebrate together.
“It was incredible to see so many of my peers again!” exclaimed fourth-year student Thad Woodard, who was elated to have his fiancée and family as well as his classmates by his side when he opened the envelope revealing his match: the orthopaedic surgery program at the University of California, San Diego. “Due to COVID, many in-person gatherings both inside and outside of clinical time were postponed, so I hadn't seen some people in over a year!”
Woodard was one of 160 students from the Perelman School of Medicine who will begin residency in July. Of those entering the match, 97 percent were matched, and 99 percent of students who matched will train at an academic program. The top specialties included internal medicine, pediatrics, psychiatry, anesthesiology, and emergency medicine. Overall, a third are pursuing a primary care path. Students matched to programs in 20 states, and nearly one-third of them will continue their training at Penn Medicine or the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.
As an incoming ophthalmology resident, Michelle Guo learned of her match via computer on February 8th.
One of them is Michelle Guo. Because urology and ophthalmology programs announce their matches early, she found out on February 8 that she’d be spending the next four years at Penn – with a preliminary medicine internship at Pennsylvania Hospital followed by residency at the Scheie Eye Institute. Guo was on a trip with friends, who surprised her with balloons and decorations before she logged on to her computer to see her match. “I’m grateful that I have had the chance to familiarize myself with the different clinical sites that I’ll be rotating through as a resident,” she says. “From completing my intern year at the nation’s first hospital, to learning from world-class leaders at Scheie and CHOP, to serving our diverse patient population, I look forward to the next four years.”
And that’s what it’s all about, reflects Senior Vice Dean for Medical Education Suzi Rose, MD, MSEd, who was also glad to be back in person after two years of fully or partially “virtual” Match Days: “I never tire of witnessing the anticipatory tension dissolve into peals of excitement and joy as matches are revealed. The Match list is spectacular. We are so proud of them!”