Fourth year medical students celebrate their residency programs on Friday, March 17.
Fourth-year medical students gathered around Old Main on Friday morning, to celebrate Match Day. The much-anticipated event solidifies where graduating medical students will continue their training as physicians.
At 9 AM, 110 medical students from the University of Arizona College of Medicine-Tucson who joined others around the country, simultaneously tore open individual envelopes to find out where they will begin the next chapter. Known as “Match Day,” the National Resident Matching Program receives more than 50,000 applications each year. It applies a mathematical algorithm to place applicants as close as possible to their first-choice residency program.
Fourth year medical student, Matthew Sivertson matched into a combined residency of pediatric and internal medicine at the University of Illinois College of Medicine at Peoria.
Tucson native, Matthew Sivertson, a fourth-year medical student matched into a combined residency of pediatric and internal medicine at the University of Illinois College of Medicine at Peoria. “Monday was the day we found out we had a job after these four years of grinding and hard work, and today is the day where we found out where we’ll be doing the next level of our training, where we’ll really get to know our specialty, our chosen specialty, and kind of what will be coming next.”
Sivertson said that he didn’t know if he wanted to be a doctor right away and that at the beginning of his studies, he considered pursuing surgery. It wasn’t until around his third year in medical school that he found out that he enjoyed taking care of adults, children, and patients in the hospital. He didn’t want to choose between the two, leading him to select a specialty that would prepare him for that.
While not all students were selected, Sivertson said of his classmates that all are more than capable. “Anybody who enters medical school is more than capable of getting into residency,” he said.
Sivertson said he plans on traveling before his residency begins.
“You know, there (were) a lot of things covered in shroud(s) up to this point, and now we can start making plans,” Sivertson said.
Sivertson said that he hopes to one day return as faculty at the University of Arizona College of Medicine in Tucson.
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