ECU Brody School of Medicine Class of 2020 learns residency matches
Fourth-year Brody School of Medicine students learned Friday where they will spend the next several years completing residency training.
The highly anticipated Match Day ceremony is normally held in the Brody Auditorium in front of family, friends and faculty. Because of social distancing guidelines on large gatherings due to the COVID-19 coronavirus, Match Day 2020 was celebrated differently.
Resilience — a key character trait of many medical students and physicians — helped the Class of 2020 adapt as they adjusted to a theme of change that has intertwined over the years of their Brody experience.
“The Class of 2020 has been flexible since the day that they arrived. They’ve been nimble, they’ve shown great resilience and we’re super proud of them,” said Dr. Susan Schmidt, Brody’s associate dean for student affairs. “Today is the culmination of all that. Arguably, Match Day is bigger than graduation because they figure out what the next step is.”
Students at the Brody School of Medicine pick up their Match Day 2020 envelopes on Friday, March 20. (Photo by Rhett Butler)
Even without the traditional celebration, their excitement couldn’t be dampened.
Cheers echoed across the Health Sciences Campus shortly after noon Friday as students received the envelopes holding their matches in a “drive-thru” Match Day. Student Affairs staff stood several feet apart on the curb in front of Brody as students drove by to collect their envelopes and gift bags through car windows.
Dr. Mark Stacy, dean of the Brody School of Medicine and ECU’s vice chancellor for health sciences, said the current global health crisis reminded him of his time in medical school when the AIDS epidemic had just started.
“I remember the fear. ‘What do I do? How do I take care of myself?’ I remember the worry of my family and I remember the worry of other patients in the hospital. And we figured it out – we will figure this out also,” Stacy said in a video message to the students. “So you need to be confident, careful and move forward with your job, because that’s why we’re in this profession.”
Brody’s Class of 2020 matched with programs in a wide range of specialties at institutions across the country. In keeping with Brody’s mission to address North Carolina’s need for more primary care physicians, about 54% percent of the new residents – all of whom are from North Carolina – will be entering primary care residencies. That includes 17 students in pediatrics, eight in family medicine, seven in internal medicine, four in obstetrics/gynecology and three in internal medicine/pediatrics.
Thirty-eight percent will remain in North Carolina to complete residencies, and 14% matched at ECU/Vidant Medical Center.
While change is nothing new for the Class of 2020, their Brody experiences have brought transformations that signal the promise and possibility of the future. On Friday, family members and other wistful well-wishers shared notes of congratulations to the class on social media in lieu of attending the ceremony in person.
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