3/19/2025
CI MED Class of 2025 Impresses in Residency Match
3/19/2025
CI MED Class of 2025 Impresses in Residency Match
Carle Illinois College of Medicine students have been selected as resident physicians by some of the top teaching hospitals and residency programs across the country including Yale, Stanford, Johns Hopkins, and the University of California at San Francisco. CI MED’s 2025 graduates will serve in some of the most challenging and sought-after specialties, including neurosurgery, ear, nose, and throat surgery, and on the front lines of medicine in primary care.
The results announced on March 21, 2025, represent the next step in medical training for CI MED’s next graduating class and a growing tradition of impressive residency placements for the world’s first engineering-based medical school.
“I think the word is out now that Carle Illinois College of Medicine is truly the leader in innovation in our country,” said CI MED Executive Vice Dean Greg Polites. “When our students come for residency, they’re coming with something extra, and residency programs are noticing that. When you think of all the great things they’re going to do, the most important thing is they’re going to take care of people and transform lives,” he said.
CI MED’s Class of 2025 matched into thirteen different specialties in 20 different states, including seven who will stay in Illinois. Students are given the option to share their Residency Match results. Class of 2025 members who chose to make their results public are listed below, by specialty.
SPECIALTY | LAST NAME | FIRST NAME | RESIDENCY PROGRAM |
Anesthesiology | Brooke | Nathaniel | Ohio State University Med Ctr |
Anesthesiology | Dusza | Mateusz | U Illinois COM-Chicago |
Anesthesiology | Koo | Hyunji | Lahey Clinic-MA |
Anesthesiology | Ma | Michael | University of California -SF |
Anesthesiology | Patel | Tarika | Loyola Univ Med Ctr-IL |
Emergency Medicine | Dassanayaka | Jaliya (Tehan) | Johns Hopkins Hosp-MD |
Emergency Medicine | Hyde | Andrew | U Iowa Hospitals & Clinics |
Emergency Medicine | Ng | Daniel | New York-Presbyterian/Queens |
Emergency Medicine | Rouillard | Christopher | U Washington Affil Hosps |
Family Medicine | Marsh | Jordan | University of Utah Health |
Family Medicine | Moran | Zelda | U New Mexico SOM |
Family Medicine | Nguyen | Nicholas | Carilion Clinic-Virginia Tech Carilion SOM |
General Surgery | Bhagavan | Monica | U Illinois COM-Chicago |
General Surgery | Gangidi | Sumavarshini | Stanford Health Care-CA |
General Surgery | Mann | Sabrina | Albany Med Ctr-NY |
General Surgery | Monjazeb | Ryan | U Minnesota Med School |
General Surgery | Nigh | Noah | U Kansas SOM-Kansas City |
General Surgery | Shah | Aashka | WellStar Health System-GA |
General Surgery | Tomita | Beverly | Carle Foundation Hosp-IL |
Internal Medicine | Bhardwaj | Drishti | Riverside Community Hospital-CA |
Internal Medicine | Govande | Mukul | Kaiser Permanente-SF-CA |
Internal Medicine | Linjawi | Hamad | UC Davis Med Ctr-CA |
Internal Medicine | Rawson | Kaden | U Wisconsin Hospital and Clinics |
Internal Medicine | Sonnenberg | Adam | U Illinois COM-Chicago |
Neurology | Kwok | Susanna | SIU SOM & Affil Hosps-IL |
Neurology | Lu | Jeffrey | UC San Diego Med Ctr-CA |
Neurology | Patel | Dhruv | Zucker SOM-Northwell Mather Hosp-NY |
Neurological Surgery | Bederson | Maria | Stanford Health Care-CA |
Neurological Surgery | Shaffer | Annabelle | Henry Ford Hospital-MI |
Obstetrics-Gynecology | Mittal | Anisha | Indiana University SOM |
Obstetrics-Gynecology | Moradian | Panik | Kaiser Permanente-Los Angeles-CA |
Obstetrics-Gynecology | Mullany | Kellie | Corewell Health-MI |
Obstetrics-Gynecology | Paschell | Peyton | Carilion Clinic-Virginia Tech Carilion SOM |
Ophthalmology | Moran | Eric | West Virginia University |
Otolaryngology | Lakshmipathy | Deepak | Hosp of the Univ of PA |
Otolaryngology | Nyaeme | Mark | Stanford Health Care-CA |
Otolaryngology | Rangarajan | Shreya | Yale-New Haven Hosp-CT |
Pediatrics | Minneci | Madeline | U Maryland Med Ctr |
Psychiatry | Conrad | Dale | Carle Foundation Hosp-IL |
Radiology, Diagnostic | Pandya | Maharshi | Transitional -St Lukes Hosp-Bethlehem-PA/U North Carolina Hospitals |
Radiology, Diagnostic | Vijayakumar | Vishwaarth | Surgery-General - SSM Health/St Louis Univ SOM-MO - Dx Radiology–U Wisconsin Hospital and Clinics |
CI MED graduates are trained to be innovators and problem-solvers. Jeffrey Lu will begin his residency in neurology at the University of California-San Diego in July where he will continue to pursue medicine with an innovation and entrepreneurial mindset.
“I think physician-innovators are there day-to-day and know the problems and being able to come up with ideas and being able to bring in the right people to create solutions for those problems… that’s the connective piece, and that’s what I’m taking with me to San Diego.”
Jeffrey Lu, CI MED Class of 2025
The Class of 2025 continues the CI MED tradition of strong matches in technologically advanced and surgical specialties while breaking new ground with the school’s first matches in the competitive field of otolaryngology (including ear, nose, and throat medicine, and head and neck surgery). Shreya Rangarajan is headed to Yale for a five-year residency aiming to make an impact through ENT/head and neck surgery.
“Every single thing (about this specialty) spoke to me. You can restore someone’s voice, you can restore someone’s hearing, you can give someone a better quality of life after head and neck cancer,” Rangarajan said. Part of her journey was founding VOCA Health, a platform designed to improve diagnosis and treatment monitoring for adults affected by voice disorders. “CI MED allowed me to do innovation as well as learn medicine and become a future physician innovator right from day one of medical school,” she said.
This year, eleven CI MED women matched into specialties that are surgically focused or have a strong surgical component. Annabelle Shaffer is one of CI MED’s first female physician-innovators to match in neurosurgery, where women make up only about 8.4% of practitioners in the U.S.
“It’s great for representation and for young women considering medicine to see themselves not only in medicine but also as a neurosurgeon doing all kinds of life-saving and life-altering treatments for patients,” said Shaffer, who will soon be a three-degree Illinois graduate. “Illinois really built up my research experience. My research experience is a big part of why I matched into the field [of neurosurgery],” Shaffer said.
CI MED grads specializing in family medicine, internal medicine, and pediatrics will take their places on the front line of health care, where the patient problems can be diverse.
By going into family medicine, Nick Nguyen is interested in using his physician-innovator training to improve the day-to-day lives of patients. “Innovation in the world of primary care is about creating a more patient-centered, accessible, and supportive health care experience— one that not only meets patients where they are but also empowers them to take control of their long-term health," Nguyen said.
Three students will advance healthcare in Central Illinois, including two who will serve at Carle Foundation Hospital in Urbana. Beverly Tomita will specialize in general surgery at Carle with an eye toward trauma and critical care in the future.
“I’m excited to stay in Central Illinois and develop my skills even further. I had a great rotation in surgery at Carle Foundation Hospital. I felt really taken care of by the residents and the hospital staff. I’m excited to use my physician-innovator training to advance cutting-edge care for patients in Central Illinois,” Tomita said.
Specialty and residency program choice is both a professional and a personal decision; striking the balance is particularly tricky for those in relationships in which both partners are embarking on medical careers. The Class of 2025 includes several ‘couples’ matches – MD candidates who are seeking medical residency placement in the same location with a partner who is also entering residency. Peyton Paschell will train in obstetrics and gynecology and her partner Nick Nguyen will train in family medicine, both at Virginia Tech.
“It (couples matching) definitely added some complexity to the match process,” Paschell said. She and Nguyen even created a ‘March Madness’ style spreadsheet to rank their residency choices based on tangibles like distance but also based on their personal and professional priorities. “To both of us, it’s very important to us to be out there in the community, and I think that’s reflected in the specialties we chose,” she said.
Residency match is a competitive process in which fourth-year medical students vie for a limited number of openings in specialties and hospitals that offer advanced training under the supervision of experienced clinicians. A ‘match’ occurs when there’s agreement between the medical student’s preferred program and the residency program director’s list of top applicants. Results are kept confidential until students receive official offer letters on Match Day. New residents will begin their new positions in July, lasting between three and seven years, depending on the specialty. Surgical specialties are a minimum of four years in duration.
Carle Illinois College of Medicine is the world’s first engineering-based medical school, created in 2015 as a partnership between the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and Carle Health. CI MED’s curriculum emphasizes human factors, design thinking, medical technologies, and entrepreneurship to prepare caring, compassionate, and skilled physician-innovators for the practice of modern medicine. Carle Illinois graduated its first class in 2022 and is now home to more than 230 enrolled students and more than 700 affiliated clinical and academic faculty members.