Match Day — and Vanderbilt’s longstanding tradition of gathering fourth-year medical students, their families, friends and faculty together to celebrate — was revamped to accommodate the social distancing measures that have been put in place to help prevent the spread of COVID-19.
Match Day is the crowning moment of the National Resident Match Program, which matches thousands of medical students with residency programs at medical centers and hospitals across the country. On March 20, Vanderbilt University School of Medicine’s Match Day ceremony took place via livestream.
Deviating from tradition, the students opened their emails rather than envelopes and stayed home instead of gathering as a class in Langford Auditorium. But, some elements of the ceremony remained the same. Donald Brady, MD, Senior Associate Dean of Health Sciences, and Amy Fleming, MD, MHPE, Associate Dean for Medical Student Affairs, who were positioned in 208 Light Hall, kicked off the ceremony on a livestream video by reading welcomes and congratulations sent in from faculty and staff.
Fleming randomly called student names and then one by one, each student virtually revealed where he or she had matched. Brady and Fleming called out the Matches explaining where and in what field students would pursue training. A pin was placed on the U.S. map documenting each student’s residency placement.
“This is clearly an unusual year. Celebrating Match as a large group is inconsistent with current safety practices. As stresses and strains on our health care community continue to rise, it is important for us to find moments of normalcy and celebration,” Fleming said. “We wanted everyone to share in the success of our students because our Vanderbilt community is the foundation of why our students are so successful. Our students have matched into top training programs across the U.S. It was wonderful to celebrate their incredible achievements.”
This year, 20% of the graduates will stay at Vanderbilt for residency or internship. And almost 40% of the women who graduated are matched to surgical specialties. Seven couples participated in a “couples match,” including Shaunak Amin and Nicole Bakhoum.
Amin and Bakhoum met during VUSM’s orientation week. They were both placed in the same advisory college — Batson — became best friends and started dating during their first year of medical school.
Amin matched into otolaryngology and Bakhoum matched into emergency medicine at the University of Washington Affiliate Hospitals.
“While it is unfortunate that a formal Match Day ceremony couldn’t occur due to the present circumstances, and we were unable to celebrate in person with our classmates and families, we were still very excited for the Match. We greatly appreciate all the efforts made by our deans to keep the spirit of Match Day alive through a virtual ceremony along with the age-old tradition of putting a dollar into a fishbowl for whoever is the last name called,” Amin said.
“Vanderbilt has been an amazing place for us both to grow as future leaders in medicine. The school is truly committed to its students and we have fostered an incredibly collegial and welcoming environment among its faculty and students,” Bakhoum said.
“Our small class size has created a very tightknit class and our classmates will be among our closest friends for life. We both love our curriculum, which has allowed us early clinical experiences in order to find the specialties that were right for us.”
Of the 81 students matching into residency programs, 15 students matched to internal medicine residencies; 29 students matched into surgical residencies. All told, 2 each matched into neurosurgery, psychiatry, dermatology and OB-GYN; 5 each into ophthalmology and otolaryngology; 4 each into family medicine, orthopaedic surgery, plastic surgery, urology, diagnostic radiology and emergency medicine; 8 into pediatrics; 3 each into general surgery, neurology, anesthesiology and radiation oncology; and 1 each into interventional radiology and pathology.
Nathaniel Yohannes matched into diagnostic radiology at NYP Hosp-Weill Cornell Med Center-New York.
“I feel the accommodations for Match Day were very thoughtful, and I’m super grateful for everything that the staff did to make the day special in light of the recent pandemic,” he said.
“I’ve loved being at Vanderbilt the past four years. I’ve grown more in these four years than I could have ever imagined. I’ve created lifelong friends and will always look back on my time in medical school in a positive light thanks to my classmates and the wonderful staff I had the opportunity to work with. I wouldn’t trade my experience for the world.”
Match Day list 2020
Shaunak Amin – U. of Washington Affiliated Hospitals, Otolaryngology
Joshua Anderson – Emory U., Radiation Oncology
Victoria Anderson – Emory U., Family Medicine
Aaron Azose – UCLA Medical Center Olive View, Internal Medicine
Nicole Bakhoum – U. of Washington Affiliated Hospitals, Emergency Medicine
Justin Banerdt – Yale-New Haven Hospital, Internal Medicine/Physician Scientist
Lauren Barr – Greater Lawrence Family Health Center, Family Medicine
Shawn Barton – Emory U., Neurology
Joshua Bland – U. of Tennessee Chattanooga, Pediatrics
Kendrick Campbell – Duke U. Medical Center, Urology
Rohini Chakravarthy – Johns Hopkins Hospital, Internal Medicine/Urban Health
Leah Chisholm – VUMC, Urology
Elise Clemens – U. of North Carolina Hospitals, Anesthesiology
Jonathan Dallas – U. of Southern California, Neurological Surgery
Jeremiah Dallmer – Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Urology
Sabina Dang – Barnes-Jewish Hospital, Otolaryngology
Joshua Daryoush – U. of Utah Health, Orthopaedic Surgery
Russell Day – VUMC, Surgery-Preliminary/Ophthalmology
Rebekka DePew – West Suburban Medical Center, Neurology
Rachel Do – U. of North Carolina Hospitals, Neurology
Molly Eckman – UPMC Medical Education, OB-GYN
Shervin Etemad – U. of Southern California, Plastic Surgery
Benjamin Facer – U. of Texas Rio Grande Valley, Transitional; Ohio State University Medical Center, Radiation Oncology
Sarah Fitzlaff – VUMC, Pathology
Kari Fossum – VUMC, Surgery-Preliminary/Ophthalmology
Kate Frost – Brigham & Women’s Hospital, Anesthesiology
Christian Gerhart – Barnes-Jewish Hospital, Emergency Medicine
Joseph Gibian – Barnes-Jewish Hospital, Orthopaedic Surgery
Kevin Graepel – St. Louis Children’s Hospital, Pediatrics
Stephanie Hadley – Children’s Hospital of Boston, Pediatrics
Rachana Haliyur – U. of Michigan Hospitals Ann Arbor, Medicine-Preliminary/Ophthalmology
Eriny Hanna – VUMC, Emergency Medicine
Nicholas Harris – UPMC Medical Education, Pediatrics/Scientist Development
Jennifer Haydek – MedStar Georgetown U. Hospital, Internal Medicine
Merla Hubler – U. of Tennessee Chattanooga, Pediatrics
Kianna Jackson – VUMC, Plastic Surgery
Elishama Kanu – Duke U. Medical Center, General Surgery
Suraj Kapoor – Brookwood Baptist Health, Transitional; Barnes-Jewish Hospital, Radiology-Diagnostic
Ariel Kniss – VUMC, Surgery-Preliminary; Massachusetts General Hospital, Radiology-Diagnostic
Jonathan Knowlton – Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Pediatrics
Katherine Konvinse – Stanford U., Pediatrics/Research Track
Danielle Kubicki – Barnes-Jewish Hospital, Medicine-Primary
Andrew Kuhn – Barnes-Jewish Hospital, Orthopaedic Surgery
Emily Long – BI Deaconess Medical Center, Plastic Surgery
Anne Lowery – Hospital of the U. of Pennsylvania, Otolaryngology
Jennifer Marvin-Peek – VUMC, Internal Medicine
Lauren Matevish – U. of Texas Southwestern, General Surgery
Varun Menon – Fort Belvoir Community Hospital, Family Medicine
Megan Mitchell – Harvard Medical School, Otolaryngology
Emily Moore – Brigham & Women’s Hospital, Medicine-Primary/DGM
Pritha Multani – UC Davis Medical Center, Pediatrics
Kevin Neuzil – U. of North Carolina Hospitals, Urology
Nkechi Nwabueze – VUMC, Surgery-Preliminary/Ophthalmology
Didi Odinkemelu – Hospital of the U. of Pennsylvania, Anesthesiology
Kinsley Ojukwu – VUMC, Internal Medicine
Shan Parikh – Yale-New Haven Hospital, Internal Medicine/Physician Scientist
Sydney Payne – Presence Resurrection Medical Center, Transitional; Stanford U., Radiology-Diagnostic
Rand Pope – VUMC, Surgery-Preliminary
Matthew Puccetti – Brigham & Women’s Hospital, Medicine-Preliminary/Neurology
Christopher Puchi – Northwestern McGaw, Otolaryngology
Henry Quach – VUMC, Medicine-Preliminary; U. of Cincinnati Medical Center, Dermatology
Gautam Rangavajla – UPMC Medical Education, Internal Medicine
Kaitlyn Reasoner – VUMC, Internal Medicine
Vincent Riccelli – U. of Texas Southwestern, Plastic Surgery
Meredith Rogers – St. Thomas Hospitals, Medicine-Preliminary; U. of Texas Southwestern, Dermatology
Olivia Roman – Barnes-Jewish Hospital, Emergency Medicine
Alexander Sherry – WellStar Kennestone Regional Medical Center, Transitional; U. of Texas MD Anderson, Radiation Oncology
Clark Stallings – UPMC Medical Education, Internal Medicine
David Suh – U. of North Carolina Hospitals, Psychiatry
Alexandra Sundermann – Duke U. Medical Center, OB-GYN
Joshua Thompson – VUMC, General Surgery
Alex Tinianow – Barnes-Jewish Hospital Internal Medicine
Samuel Trump – U. of Chicago Medical Center, Internal Medicine
Matthew Villaume – VUMC, Internal Medicine/ABIM Research Path
Jessica Wen – Stanford U., Surgery-Preliminary; Interventional Radiology
Whittney Wiley – Cambridge Health Alliance, Psychiatry
Daniel Wolfson – Rush U. Medical Center, Neurological Surgery
Colby Wollenman – VUMC, Orthopaedic Surgery
Nathaniel Yohannes – Kettering Health Network, Transitional; Weill Cornell Medical Center, Radiology-Diagnostic
Yuxi Zheng – Duke U. Medical Center, Medicin-Preliminary/Ophthalmology
Nicholas Zingas – Wright State U., Internal Medicine
