Even though the annual Match Day ceremony was not held today because of COVID-19 concerns, fourth-year UConn medical students still have a lot to celebrate.

Out of the 100 students eligible for the National Residency Match Program, 98% of them secured a residency and the vast majority matched to one of their top three choices. 

“I am pleased to see that the first graduates of our new curriculum did exceedingly well on their Match,” said Dr. Bruce Liang, dean of the medical school. “It was four years ago when these students embarked on a novel team-based learning curriculum with advanced hands-on clinical skills training and it has really paid off. Congratulations to them and our entire educational leadership team.”

This year, in lieu of the traditional opening of the envelopes exactly at noon,  students received their individual letters electronically.

They found out that 40% of them are entering training in the much-needed primary care specialties of family medicine, internal medicine, and pediatrics. 

Emergency medicine, anesthesiology, and psychiatry were the top programs for the remaining 60% of students.

The majority of the class, 76 of 100 students, will stay in New England and the Northeast, with 33 remaining in Connecticut.

Match Day is a yearly tradition at medical schools across the country to match students with residency programs where they’ll spend the next three to five years of their lives training at teaching hospitals nationwide.