Chicago Medical School students celebrate Match Day
Chicago Medical School at Rosalind Franklin University in North Chicago celebrated the annual Match Day rite of passage recently, as 188 fourth-year medical students and thousands more around the United States learned where they will complete their medical residencies, and how they will spend the next three to seven years of their lives.
Members of the Chicago Medical School Class of 2018, surrounded by family and friends, tore open envelopes at the stroke of 11 a.m. during the nationally synchronized Match Day event March 16.
The students, who will graduate on June 1, will train at dozens of university medical centers and hospitals across the nation, including Henry Ford, Walter Reed, Cedars-Sinai, UCLA, Yale-New Haven, Dartmouth and the Cleveland Clinic. Numerous students matched in Illinois.
"Your match letters include the location of your residency, but they also offer evidence of factors even more important to your past and future success," CMS Dean Dr. James Record said. "Relationships built on trust. Hard work on behalf of patients. And personal fulfillment - why we do what we do."
Chicago Medical School achieved a 97 percent match rate, topping the national rate of 94 percent in what was the largest match in the 66-year history of the National Resident Matching Program, with more than 37,000 applicants submitting program choices for 33,167 positions.
At least seven CMS student pairs successfully applied for residency through the NRMP "couples" match, under which two applications are considered as a unit, including Natalie Popenko and Ryan Glynn, who learned that they will both train at hospitals in New Orleans, she in pediatrics-emergency medicine at LSU and he in neurosurgery at Tulane.
Landing a couples match in competitive specialties, for which there are fewer available spots, is no small feat. It requires flexibility, strong communication and extreme candor. Applicants are asked to consider this question: "Is matching as a couple a higher priority than matching as an individual into the program of your dreams?"
"There was definitely some compromise," said Glynn a native of Wilmette and graduate of Vanderbilt University. "There's your application to think about and hers - this tremendously successful person who has graciously allowed, for better or worse, her fate to be tied to yours. You just put your best foot forward and trust in the process."
Popenko, who grew up in Laguna Beach, California, and Glynn both attended RFU's biomedical sciences program, earning Master of Science degrees in 2013.
"She sat next to me on the first day of the lecture in Rhoades Auditorium," Glynn recalled. "I rarely missed a class after that."
"On the very last day, he asked me out," Popenko said. "He had just been accepted to CMS. We knew we had to work as hard as possible if we wanted to stay together. We relied on each other, and together we became the best support system ever."
"Medical school is a tough road," Glynn said. "A strong relationship with someone who understands you helps you stay positive, helps you to persevere."
Popenko, who as president of the student group Outreach for Health, worked to expand treatment of underserved patients, is the recipient of the 2016 CMS Humanitarian Award. Glynn co-founded the ophthalmology clinic at the university Interprofessional Community Clinic for the uninsured and helped conduct research in the university's Department of Neuroscience.
Other students who achieved a couples match include: Autumn and Daniel Montville, in pediatrics and psychiatry, respectively, at Mayo Clinic; Sergey and Dayle Bondarev, radiology and pediatrics, respectively, at Case Western/Cleveland Medical Center; and Gabriel Arom, otolaryngology; and Valerie Chavez, physical medicine and rehabilitation, at Loma Linda University and UC Irvine, respectively.