MATCH DAY 2016

“Match Day” – the day that medical students across the country have been working toward for four years – will be held Friday, March 18.

Match Day is the culmination of a complex year-long process that matches the nation’s graduating medical students with residency programs. Match results are released nationally by the National Resident Matching Program™ (NRMP) and announced at ceremonies coordinated to occur each year on the same date (the third Friday in March) at the same time (1 p.m. Eastern time).

Surrounded by excited family members and friends, members of the UA College of Medicine – Tucson Class of 2016 will open the traditional Match Day sealed envelopes, containing letters showing where they will spend the next several years as resident-physicians, the next step in building a medical career. Residency programs vary in length from three years for general medicine/family practice specialties to eight years for the most specialized of surgeons. Most residencies will begin July 1.

The UA College of Medicine – Tucson Match Day event will be held in DuVal Auditorium, Banner – University Medical Center Tucson, 1501 N. Campbell Ave. The event will begin at 9 a.m. with a skit written and performed by the medical students. This year’s theme is “Netflix and Match.” Students will receive their match results after the skit, from 10 a.m. to noon.

(EDITORS SAVE THE DATE: Doctor of Medicine degrees will be conferred at the UA College of Medicine – Tucson convocation ceremony on Thursday, May 12, 7-9 p.m., in UA Centennial Hall, 1020 E. University Blvd., UA Main Campus.)

Following are some of the outstanding 2016 UA College of Medicine – Tucson graduates who will be available for interviews on Match Day:

(Profiles by Jane Erikson, UA College of Medicine – Tucson)

Charity Adusei (pediatrics, dual MD-MPH degree)

Charity Adusei was born and grew up in the West African country of Ghana, where she just spent six weeks researching barriers to follow-up care for newborns. Charity and her family moved to Arizona from Ghana when she was 17. She graduated from the UA in 2011 with a degree in molecular and cellular biology and a minor in general business administration. She is the first in her family to graduate from college and the first in her extended family to become a physician. She will graduate in May with a dual MD-MPH degree, and then will spend three years training to be a pediatrician. She also hopes to continue working in global health.

Whitney Burns (emergency medicine) and Jeff Robertson (anesthesiology)

With their wedding date set for April 2, Whitney Burns and Jeff Robertson are doing a couples match. They have applied to residency programs in big cities with multiple residency programs, where they hope Whitney can do a three-year residency in emergency medicine and Jeff can do a four-year residency in anesthesiology. Jeff graduated from the UA in 2009 with a degree in physiology and a minor in chemistry. Whitney graduated from the UA in 2012 with a major in physiology and a minor in psychology. Whitney’s home town is Phoenix and Jeff hails from Boulder, Colo.

Tim Tiutan (internal medicine)

Tim Tiutan was born in the Philippines and moved to the U.S. with his family when he was 8. He graduated from the UA in 2012 with a B.S. in physiology and a B.A. in Spanish linguistics. He will do a three-year residency in internal medicine, after which he hopes to specialize in hematology-oncology. His ultimate goal is to be an academic oncologist, with a clinical practice that focuses on marginalized populations, including Hispanics and members of the LGBT community, while teaching and mentoring on the side.

About the National Resident Matching Program™

During the first half of their senior year, medical students apply for positions at residency programs, then interview with program directors, faculty and residents.

In February, students submit their list of choices in order of preference – at the same time residency program directors submit their rank-ordered lists of preferred candidates – to the National Resident Matching Program™ (NRMP) headquarters in Washington, D.C. A computer matches each student to the residency program that is highest on the student’s list and that has offered a position to the applicant.

For couples participating in the NRMP, the match process is more challenging. In addition to each deciding on a specialty, they must coordinate their match lists, taking into consideration the distance between residency programs as they create and rank pairs of choices. The NRMP guarantees that both applicants will match at the highest-ranked combination in which both applicants have been accepted.

About Residency Programs at the UA College of Medicine – Tucson

The UA College of Medicine – Tucson offers a total of 59 residencies and fellowships through two graduate medical education programs: UA College of Medicine Graduate Medical Education and University of Arizona College of Medicine at South Campus. All of the UA residencies/fellowships are accredited by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME), which establishes exacting national standards for approval and assessment of graduate medical education programs. The UA programs provide training in environments unique for their diverse patient populations and exceptional faculty-to-resident ratios, and they are crucial in attracting and training doctors who will remain in Arizona.

The UA College of Medicine Graduate Medical Education Program oversees 52 ACGME-accredited residency and fellowship programs in all major specialties and subspecialties. More than 600 residents and fellows are trained at the UA College of Medicine – Tucson’s primary teaching hospital, Banner – University Medical Center Tucson, and other major participating institutions in Tucson.

The University of Arizona College of Medicine at South Campus has six ACGME-accredited residency programs – emergency medicine, family medicine, internal medicine, neurology, ophthalmology and psychiatry – and one fellowship in medical toxicology. Each program has achieved continued accreditation from the ACGME. Approximately 110 residents are participating in these programs, which focus on providing health care in rural and underserved areas of Arizona to help reduce the Arizona physician shortage and improve access to health care throughout the state.

UA College of Medicine South Campus programs are based primarily at Banner – University Medical Center South with rotations throughout the state, including the Southern Arizona VA Health Care System and multiple rural and Indian Health Service locations.

About the UA College of Medicine – Tucson
The University of Arizona College of Medicine – Tucson is advancing health and wellness through state-of-the-art medical education programs, groundbreaking research, and advancements in patient care in Arizona and across the United States. Founded in 1967, the College ranks among the top medical schools in the nation for research and primary care and is leading the way in academic medicine through its partnership with Banner – University Medicine, a new division of one of the largest nonprofit health-care systems in the country. For more information, please visit http://medicine.arizona.edu

About the University of Arizona Health Sciences
The University of Arizona Health Sciences is the statewide leader in biomedical research and health professions training. The UA Health Sciences includes the UA Colleges of Medicine (Phoenix and Tucson), Nursing, Pharmacy and Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health, with main campus locations in Tucson and the growing Phoenix Biomedical Campus in downtown Phoenix. From these vantage points, the UA Health Sciences reaches across the state of Arizona and the greater Southwest to provide cutting-edge health education, research, patient care and community outreach services. A major economic engine, the UA Health Sciences employs almost 5,000 people, has nearly 1,000 faculty members and garners more than $126 million in research grants and contracts annually. For more information: http://uahs.arizona.edu

Media Contact: Jane Erikson

ALSO SEE:
“Internal Medicine First Choice for Match Day Surprises” | Posted March 21, 2016
“Primary Care Wins the Largest Share of Students in the UA College of Medicine – Tucson Class of 2016” | Posted March 19, 2016