MUSC Medical Students Match Day
Match Up with Bee Street Lofts
Match Day: Thursday, March 18, 2010

As a medical student, you know the third Thursday of March is not just another day. This day determines not only where you will work after medical school, but what kind of doctor you will become. Hello Match Day!

Dr. Pauline Chenin writes in her latest Doctor and Patient column how matching medical students to residency programs is a complicated system. After completion of their education, medical students must give up all control over where they will work, instead having to rely on a computer algorithm to tell them where their first job will be. The result determines not only the type of training each student receives, but their medical specialty, where they will live and even the fate of their relationships. Dr. Chen writes, "Every doctor remembers his or her Match Day. Many of my classmates gathered in a Chicago bar, announcing their matches over a sound system usually reserved for local rock bands and slipping dollar bills into a kitty that would go to the last student to find out. I, however, chose to be alone. The possibility of failing, of either not matching at all or of matching at a program far from home or friends, haunted me for months beforehand, and I knew I couldn’t bear to shoulder my disappointment in front of 140 classmates. At noon that day, I slipped away from the lab where I was working into a small conference room. There I made my phone call, swallowing hard to keep my heart from leaping out of my chest."

To learn more, read Dr. Chen’s full column, “A Medical Student’s Rite of Passage,”.
Visit National Resident Matching Program Match Schedule.

If you are so fortunate to be assigned to MUSC in Charleston, we welcome you to tour the address of choice for Charleston doctors, medical residents and staff - Bee Street Lofts.