Inaugural Match Day Reflections from Carle Illinois' Inaugural Class Members of 2022

One hundred percent of Carle Illinois College of Medicine’s inaugural graduating class successfully matched with a medical residency training program and in top specialty choices. The exceptional residency placement result means Carle Illinois’ physician innovators in the class of 2022 will be positioned to directly impact patient care in hospitals and communities from New York to California, when they enter residency in July.

This video is a reflection on Carle Illinois' Inaugural Match Day that took place March 18, 2022. 

During the school’s first-ever Match Day ceremony, inaugural class members received offers for residency positions in some of the most competitive medical specialties, including orthopedic surgery, plastic surgery, and obstetrics and gynecology. Carle Illinois graduates will serve at some of the top teaching hospitals in the U.S., including BI Deaconess (Harvard), Mayo Clinic, Stanford, Georgetown, and New York University – Long Island.

Below are a few of the highlights of where Carle Illinois 2022 graduates will serve:

• Match Rate: 100%
• Matched into preferred specialty (Candidates in the Main NRMP Match*): 100%
• # of specialties: Carle Illinois student matched in 11 distinct specialties
• Top specialties: Internal Medicine (6), Physical Medicine & Rehab (2), Diagnostic Radiology (2)
• Top states matched in: California (4), Minnesota (3), Illinois (2)
• Top regions matched in: Midwest (10), East (8), West (5)

*National Resident Matching Program

Carle Illinois’ 100 percent match rate surpasses the national average for students graduating with medical doctorate degrees (match rates historically range from 92- 95%) and osteopathic doctorates (89.1% match rate in 2021). Interim Dean Uretz Oliphant says a 100 percent match rate is an amazing accomplishment that reflects the quality of students in Carle Illinois’ inaugural class.

“These residencies saw the same thing in these physician innovators that we saw back in 2018 when we were trying to choose our first class. They recognize the quality of the students coming out of this program,” Oliphant said. “These students have started a great legacy at Carle Illinois.”

During the residency selection process, fourth-year medical students across the U.S. vie for a limited number of residency openings in specialties and hospitals offering advanced training under the supervision of experienced clinicians. A ‘match’ occurs when there’s agreement between the medical students’ preferred programs and the residency program directors list of top applicants. Results are revealed on Match Day when students receive formal offer letters.

Medical residencies last between three and seven years, depending on the specialty, and help set the course of a physician’s clinical career. Christina Moawad chose to pursue orthopedic surgery — a competitive specialty in which women are typically underrepresented – and will train at the prestigious NYU Long Island School of Medicine.

“Mentors in orthopedic surgery (at Carle Health) took me under their wings. Despite the difficulty of this specialty, no one at this school told me I couldn’t do this,” Moawad said. She says the outstanding match results open doors for future graduates. “It means so much to me that other students at Carle Illinois will be able to follow in my footsteps and pursue a career in orthopedic surgery.”

Carle Illinois student Aaron Brown will serve a four-year residency specializing in anesthesiology at Stanford Medical Center in California. He says the outstanding match results are a credit to students’ hard work and to the vision of Carle Illinois. “This unique engineering-based curriculum puts us in a position to excel when interviewing for residencies, and then as we go forward in creating new solutions to health care problems,” Brown said. “For me personally, as a person of color and the first doctor in my family, it shows that hard work pays off.”

To Kenny Leung, who will become a resident at University of California-Irvine specializing in internal medicine, residency is an opportunity to bring an innovator’s mindset to medical practice. “We have proven that we are physician innovators, and now, we have an opportunity to change the future of medicine.”

Interim Associate Dean for Student Affairs Heather Wright says the class of 2022 is now poised to make an impact on the practice of medicine. “We have a new group of compassionate, intelligent, and driven physicians who are setting out to change and save lives,” Wright said.

Details on some of the Carle Illinois’ inaugural class members' residency match placements and their specialties can be found here. 

A computer algorithm creates a ‘match’ between residency applicants and available positions, with results kept confidential until Match Day when students receive a residency offer letter. Residency candidates pursuing match in certain special categories including the military, ophthalmology, and urology learned their match results earlier in their final year of medical school.

The world’s first engineering-based medical school, Carle Illinois College of Medicine emphasizes human factors, design thinking, medical technologies, and entrepreneurship to prepare caring, compassionate, and skilled physician innovators for the practice of modern medicine. Created in 2015 as a partnership between the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and Carle Health, Carle Illinois is now home to nearly 160 students and more than 600 affiliated clinical and academic faculty members.

Editor’s note: The recording of the Match Day 2022 livestream is available here.