- Gracie Blackwell
- Medicine Awards and Honors
Class of 2022 medical students celebrate Match Day
Texas A&M medical students discover where they will begin a new chapter of their medical journeys at annual Match Day
On March 18, a total of 129 fourth-year medical students from the Texas A&M University College of Medicine gathered in Tomball, Texas—near the college’s newest campus at Houston Methodist Willowbrook Hospital—to find out where they will be spending the next phase of their medical training, known as residency.
This annual event, called Match Day, is when tens of thousands of medical students across the nation simultaneously open envelopes that tell them what specialty they are in and where they will be conducting their residency for the transition from medical school to a practicing physician.
During their final year of medical school, students apply to residency programs of their interest, attend interviews and rank their preferred specialty and residency location. This process takes months leading up to Match Day.
For the first time since 2019, the College of Medicine celebrated Match Day in person, after having to move the celebration virtually in 2020 and 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
This year, around 43 percent of Texas A&M fourth-year students matched in primary care, which includes programs in family medicine, internal medicine, obstetrics-gynecology, medicine-pediatrics and pediatrics.
The Class of 2022 students matched into residencies in 25 different states, including Texas.
Beyond the 75 students who matched in Texas, eight will be headed to North Carolina, six to Illinois, five to California and five to Utah, and three each to Washington D.C., Pennsylvania and Florida.
Fourth-year medical student and class president Megan Badejo learned she had matched in orthopedic surgery at Duke University. “Match Day was absolutely amazing,” Badejo she said. “When they prepare us to go into residency, they tell us to put down our top choice, even if it feels like a long shot. For me, that’s what ultimately ended up happening. It was a big shock, and it was one of those ‘is this really happening’ kind of moments to see Duke, my dream residency program, on that sheet of paper.”
Logan and Jamie DuBose, fourth-year medical students who met during their first week of medical school and married after their third year, discovered they had matched in internal medicine and pediatrics at George Washington University and Children’s National Pediatric Residency, respectively, which are both located in Washington D.C.
“Jamie and I clicked immediately when we first met each other, and we navigated medical school as a team while growing our relationship as a couple,” DuBose said. “We studied together for almost every test in preclinical, worked side-by-side in clerkships, and took a year off together to get an extra degree between our third and fourth year: MBA for me and MPH for her. We were ecstatic to celebrate Match Day and to see all our years of studying and hard work pay off. The College of Medicine was invaluable to our growth as future physicians.”
This year, Internal Medicine was the most popular specialty that the students matched in, with 22 residents matching, followed by Pediatrics (14), Family Medicine (13) and Emergency Medicine (11). Other specialties the students matched in include Psychiatry, General Surgery, Anesthesiology, Orthopedic Surgery and Dermatology.
Visit the College of Medicine’s Match Day 2022 photo gallery for highlights from this year’s Match Day.
Media contact: media@tamu.edu