2024 Match Day: Fun, celebration mark medical education milestone event

The day was destined to be full of joy, excitement and acceptance for everyone involved. Each year on Match Day, fourth-year medical students gather, along with their counterparts across the country, to celebrate where they will embark upon the next phase of their medical training as interns and residents. A pivotal moment in their medical careers, medical students learn which residency programs they have been matched with through the National Resident Matching Program, based on their preferences and those of the residency programs. 

Senior faculty of the College of Medicine (COM) set the tone for the day’s celebration, dancing onto the stage in front of a packed house at the Charleston Music Hall. The audience included Class of 2024 fourth-year medical students, medical school faculty and staff, family and friends. 

 

This year’s Match Day celebration took on a different tone with a shift to a more sophisticated event, according to class president Kaila Hayden. This year’s theme, “A Match Day Soiree: Cheers to Your Success!” resulted after a poll and vote by the class.

“This is a big day in the start of our medical careers and start of a new identity for each of us as physicians as we begin our training. We chose to celebrate it with a bit more reverence than in years past. It will be a formal event for everyone to have a good time and feel good about themselves,” said Hayden.

 

Earlier in the day, College of Medicine Dean Terrence Steyer, M.D., and the College of Medicine alumni board hosted a champagne toast for students and families, honoring the occasion and kicking off the festivities that would carry over to the main event venue.  

This year, 100% of the 145 graduating fourth-year medical students matched to residency positions, exceeding the overall national match rate. Among the popular medical specialties of this class, 42% of the students matched in primary care medicine positions, representing internal medicine, family medicine, pediatrics and obstetrics-gynecology. Other popular specialty programs included anesthesiology, emergency medicine and psychiatry. Also, 31% of students in this class matched to residencies within South Carolina, with 28% remaining at MUSC. 

 

Steyer, dressed formally in a tuxedo and commemorative 1824 Brackish bowtie honoring the college’s 200th birthday and institution’s yearlong Bicentennial celebration, proudly acknowledged the college’s pivotal role over the last 200 years in educating and preparing medical students to excel, shaping the future of health care not only in South Carolina but throughout the country. He then extended his heartfelt congratulations to the Class of 2024. 

“Today, everyone will learn where their next phase of medical training will occur. Everyone shares a mix of excitement, joy and happiness, plus a realization of what you’ve learned at MUSC and how it will help carry you on through residency and beyond,” said Steyer. 

 

Steyer continued. “MUSC’s tagline is ‘Changing What’s Possible.’ For me, I think about what I do every day as a clinician, my role in academics. What you will do every day in your role as an intern and resident and, ultimately, an attending physician, you will be changing what’s possible in the lives of each individual who walks through the door. That’s an honor and privilege that we shouldn’t take too lightly. It’s part of who you are, and it’s something we, at MUSC, tried to ingrain into you and hope you take that with you throughout your career,” he said.

A couple’s Match story

Match Day is a momentous day for all fourth-year medical students as they learn which residency programs they have been matched with. This milestone event was particularly special for soon-to-be newlyweds Ryan Moore and Caroline Fields. 

The Lowcountry students met on the first day of medical school at MUSC midway through the COVID-19 pandemic’s first year. And while their classmates also had much to celebrate this Match Day, for them, it would kick off the start of a bustling celebratory weekend – one that would include something their classmates’ weekend would not. Within 24 hours of Match Day, the couple would say, “I do,” tying the knot surrounded by loved ones, friends and fellow students. 

 

Last fall, both Moore and Fields entered the National Residency Match Program’s (NRMP) Match as a couple, hoping to match at the same program or at least in the same geographic location. Of this year’s graduating class, they are among 11 student couples at MUSC who participated in Match Day.

“The experience opened our eyes as to what we wanted in our careers and in life – where we would live, what we would do, East Coast versus West Coast, marriage, family and what we would do not just for the next three years but for the rest of our lives,” explained Moore.  

 

Moore chose internal medicine for his residency specialty, while Fields selected anesthesiology, considered a highly competitive residency, as they entered the NRMP Couples Match process. They interviewed together at 18 common programs as well as separately.  

“I was somewhat nervous going into the Match process," said Fields. “Not only was I worried about my match, but my partner Ryan’s match as well. The process is a hard thing to predict. There’s just a lot of moving parts that go into it, and it all must fit together for it to work out.” 

 

 At noon, as students of the College of Medicine Class of 2024 and the crowd that gathered to support them counted down to zero, each student opened up his or her official envelope and together, they all learned their results as colorful streamers sailed overhead and cheers of celebration and music echoed across the hall. Moore and Fields screamed in delight and hugged. Their fates were sealed. They both had matched to their residency of choice and program: Duke University Medical Center.  

The match process was particularly moving for Fields. During her second year in medical school, she experienced the unexpected loss of her mom, Anne-Marie Fields, M.D. Both of her parents, alumni of the College of Medicine’s Class of 1995, also had met and matched in their respective residencies at MUSC. Flanked by loved ones and friends of both families who shared in the special celebration, Caroline Fields and her dad, Christopher Fields, M.D., then shared a poignant moment, wiping away bittersweet tears as they tenderly remembered her beloved mother and his cherished wife. It would be a momentous day forever to remember.

 

Moore described the couple’s experiences leading up to this weekend as a circuitous and climactic journey, guiding them to their shared destiny. 

“Looking back, Caroline and I met on the first day of medical school; today is Match Day, and Saturday is our wedding. It brings us both full circle for the last four years – studying through medical school, getting married and spending time together before we begin our residencies,” he said.

Neither could have asked for a happier ending.