Residency Match Results: Class of 2025 Lands Prestigious Programs and Specialties

2025 Residency Match Results

We Are Physician-Innovators

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.

Advances in Surgery

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.

Front Line Care

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.

Medical Duos

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.