Match Madness

Anticipation, tension build for SOM Class of 2009

The narrow passage that connects four years of medical school with the bronzy, soon-to-be doctors is Match Day.

For more than half a century, Match Day, a nationwide event where residency locations are announced to fourth-year medical students, has remained half-Academy Awards and half-lottery jackpot drawing.

Of the 96 students in the School of Medicine’s Class of 2009, most learned their match during a March 19 ceremony in the Norman C. Nelson Student Union.

Picked at random, each student walked alone to a microphone at the front of a room crowded with classmates, family and faculty and read aloud his or her residency placement.

At these ceremonies, tensions build. Nobody wants to go third from last – the runner-up and final students get prizes. Emotions get barely gauzed because some students place exactly where they hoped and others don’t, hence the references in event speeches to dealing with adversity and disappointment.

At least half the 96 members of the 2009 class will remain in state.

“Our whole purpose is to train physicians for Mississippi,” said Dr. LouAnn Woodward, associate dean for academic affairs.

The state’s physician-per-capita ratio remains the second-lowest in the U.S., a problem exacerbated by poverty, low health awareness and Mississippi’s largely rural population.

It’s why Dr. Dan Jones, associate vice chancellor for health affairs and medical school dean, invited the students leaving the state to return after their residencies.

“Let me ask you to consider coming to Mississippi to invest your career,” he said. “No other place in the world can better utilize your skills than here.”

Fourth-year medical student Yakeyla Nave already knew that. A native of tiny Shuqualak, Nave tested into the Mississippi School for Math and Science and joined the junior ROTC in ninth grade. Medical school became a goal during high school when her grandmother began suffering from Parkinson’s disease.

Enrolling in Xavier University of Louisiana, she served in the U.S. Army Reserves and Air Force Reserves, held two on-campus jobs and graduated summa cum laude in 2005.

“With my grandmother, I was always taught to work hard,” Nave said.

At the Match Day ceremony, her name was drawn third from last. No prize, but she got her wish: pediatrics at the Medical Center.

With that squared away, Nave said she’ll concentrate the next couple weeks on pre-wedding details. Her fiancé, Theo Naylor, works for the Mississippi Department of Banking and Consumer Finance.

Katy Rivlin, at the Match Day microphone for her turn, threw her arms into the air and yelled, “Ob-gyn at NYU!” Friends shrieked and family cheered. Joyful tears overwhelmed her face. Her boyfriend, Ari Glogower, will start this year at the New York University School of Law.

“I was nervous because he got a scholarship there. So if I didn’t get placed in New York, then . . .” she said, trailing off.

Beaming parents, spouses and siblings, so enwrapped they’d ditched teenage introspection, streamed out of the student union following the ceremony.

Medical students lined up for snapshots, passing hugs and congratulatory handshakes. But letdown also punctured the scene. A few leaned quietly against railings, parents closed-mouthed nearby, happy for their classmates but not willing to discuss what just happened.

At least 43 of the Class of 2009 will do their residencies in Mississippi.

Preston McDonnell matched at the Medical Center in family medicine. Following his residency, he plans to join his family’s practice in his hometown of Hazlehurst.

An avid outdoorsman, McDonnell earned a bachelor’s in business from the University of Mississippi but always wanted to become a doctor.

“Medical school made sense to do, but I didn’t know if I could be successful,” he said.

A critical-needs scholarship paid for his M.D., for which he’s required to practice six years in a medically underserved community. Coincidentally or not, Hazlehurst qualifies as such, so events worked out well for McDonnell.

It was also during medical school that he and his wife, Candi, got married.

McDonnell, whose father sponsors a diversity-related Barksdale Scholarship at the Medical Center, said the match puts him close to family, home in Flowood, the woods he hunts and the lakes he fishes.

Woodward said McDonnell is a chief example of the School ofMedicine’s goal.

“His grandfather was a physician in Hazlehurst, his father is and he’s going to join them,” she said. “He’s exactly why we’re here.”

-Jack Mazurak

2009-03-31 00:00:00 18880