Hundreds of students, faculty, staff, and family members gathered in Harkness Ballroom on Friday, March 20 to celebrate Match Day.
The air was thick with excitement as graduating medical students crowded around their Advisory House tables to retrieve the sealed envelopes containing the sites where they will begin the next phase of their medical career in residency training programs across the country.
Seconds before noon, a countdown began and at 12 p.m. on the dot, Nancy J. Brown, MD, Jean and David W. Wallace Dean of Yale School of Medicine, rang the iconic cow bell to signal it was time for students to open their envelopes.
Cheers erupted throughout the ballroom and Harkness patio as students, together with their families, friends, and loved ones, learned where they matched.
“After years of preparation in the classroom, on clinical rotations, and conducting research, it is always a high point of the year to celebrate with our medical students as they learn where they have matched,” said Jessica Illuzzi, MD, MS, deputy dean for education and Harold W. Jockers Professor of Medical Education and professor of obstetrics, gynecology, and reproductive sciences.
Students filled out their “I Matched!” signs and posed for pictures with Handsome Dan, and many added their pin to the Match Day map of the United States, indicating their residency program location.
“We are so incredibly proud of our graduating class,” said John Solomon Francis, MD, PhD, associate dean for student affairs. “Their accomplishments in the match continue to amaze me year after year.”
The academic medical centers with the most matches are:
Four or more students matched at each of the following academic medical centers: University of California (Los Angeles) affiliated hospitals, Northwestern University programs, Johns Hopkins Hospital, and NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital programs.
The MD Class of 2026 will be spread across 18 states, with most students residing in California (27 students), Connecticut (21 students), and Massachusetts (18 students).
Students matched in 23 different specialties. The largest group of matches, 29, was for Internal Medicine residency programs.
Twenty-three students matched in surgical specialties: General Surgery (2); Neurological Surgery (3); Obstetrics and Gynecology (2); Ophthalmology (5); Orthopaedic Surgery (5); Plastic Surgery (1); Thoracic Surgery (1); Urology (2); and Vascular Surgery (2).
Other matched specialties include Anesthesiology (6); Dermatology (4); Diagnostic Radiology (3); Emergency Medicine (10); Pathology (2); Pediatrics (4); Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation (1); Psychiatry (5); and Radiation Oncology (1).