Carle Illinois’ Inaugural Class Achieves 100% Residency Match Rate

March 18, 2022
bethhart@illinois.edu

Written by bethhart@illinois.edu

Christina Moawad celebrates residency placement on Match Day 2022
Christina Moawad celebrates residency placement on Match Day 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.

Valerie Chen Celebrates matching for residency at Mayo Clinic
Valerie Chen Celebrates matching for residency at Mayo Clinic

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 director's 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.”

Aaron Brown opens his residency offer letter from Stanford on Match Day 2022
Aaron Brown opens his residency offer letter from Stanford on Match Day, 2022

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.

Carle Illinois’ inaugural class members* matched with the following institutions and specialties and will begin their graduate medical education as residents in July:

Specialty Last Name First Name Program City State
Anesthesiology Brown Aaron Stanford Health Care Stanford CA
Emergency Medicine/ACMC Lucas Alex Advocate Health Care Oaklawn IL
Internal Medicine Amin Md-Shahnoor Henry Ford Hospital Detroit MI
Internal Medicine Chang Andrew Carle Foundation Hospital Urbana IL
Internal Medicine Gong Yusi B I Deaconess Medical Center (Harvard) Boston MA
Internal Medicine Leung Kenneth UC Irvine Medical Center Orange CA
Internal Medicine Rauf Asad Cleveland Clinic Cleveland OH
Internal Medicine Zhuang Jian Zucker SOM-Northwell NS/LIJ-NY Great Neck NY
Medicine-Preliminary/

 

Diagnostic Radiology

Chen Ethan Harbor-UCLA Med Center/Loma Linda University Torrance CA
Medicine-Preliminary/ Diagnostic Radiology Gaddipati Phanindra Carle Foundation Hospital/University of Washington Urbana

 

(Seattle, WA)

IL
Neurology

 

 

Jani Neel Univ. of Wisconsin Hospital and Clinics Madison WI
Obstetrics-Gynecology Chen Valerie Mayo Clinic Rochester MN
Orthopedic Surgery Moawad Christina NYU Long Island Mineola NY
Pediatrics Woodburn Elizabeth Duke Univ. Medical Center Durham NC
Physical Medicine & Rehab Houser Samantha Vanderbilt Univ. Med Center Nashville TN
Physical Medicine & Rehab Mann Dylan Univ. of Minnesota Medical School Minneapolis MN
Plastic Surgery (Integrated) Azimi Roxana MedStar – Georgetown Univ. Hospital (Georgetown) Washington DC
Urology Lee Matthew Mayo Clinic Rochester  MN

Students listed above agreed to share their information publicly.

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.


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This story was published March 18, 2022.