Chicago Medical School participates in national Match Day 2016

The Chicago Medical School at Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science celebrated Match Day 2016 on Friday, March 18, along with more than 42,000 fourth-year medical students across the nation who vied for 30,750 residency positions, according to the National Residency Matching Program.

Match Day is an annual rite of passage for medical school seniors across the country, who tear into envelopes at 11 a.m. CST to discover where they will train for the next three to seven years.

Ninety seven percent - 186 students - of the CMS Class of 2016 matched into top residencies across the country. The national match rate for senior medical students is 94 percent.

"It's four years, one envelope," said Dr. James Record, Chicago Medical School acting dean. "This is a special match and one of the best in Chicago Medical School history."

The community-based CMS, which trains students how to work in interprofessional teams and sends them to clinical rotations in a variety of healthcare settings including hospitals and clinics across Chicagoland and Wisconsin, prepares future physicians to practice under new models of care that stress prevention, wellness and medical homes.

"I'm super excited," said Elizabeth Caudill of Chicago, an Army veteran of the Iraq War, who matched into an emergency medical residency at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center, Winston-Salem, N.C.

"There are a lot of challenges ahead," she said. "In emergency medicine we see so many people who have no primary care. We have to get primary care for everyone."