On Friday, the UCR School of Medicine hosted match day for the class of 2025. The annual nationwide event gives medical students the opportunity to find out, all at the same time, the residency program where they will spend the next several years of their medical education.
This year, 98.6% of UCR SOM students, or 73 of the 74 students who entered the match process, were placed into residency programs.
The students gathered with their family and friends at Marinaj Banquet and Events in Moreno Valley. Anticipation filled the air as each student picked up the envelope containing the name of their residency program. At 9 am exactly, the students, accompanied by their peers across the country, opened the envelopes. Cheers and shouts echoed around the room.
“This is a special day, one that marks another milestone in your professional development—and oh, the places you will go,” Deborah Deas, MD, MPH, the vice chancellor for health sciences and the Mark and Pam Rubin dean of the School of Medicine, told the students and their guests.
She announced that 76% of the students will remain in Southern California for their residency programs, with 37% in the Inland Empire. In addition, 33% of the students will enter primary care specialties that are highly needed in the region, specifically family medicine, internal medicine, and pediatrics.
“This is great news in support of our mission,” Deas said, referencing the SOM’s mission to train a diverse workforce of physicians to improve the health of medically underserved people in the Inland Empire. “We are all very proud of your accomplishments and so grateful to be on this journey with each of you.”
One student planning to remain in the area is Omar Escovedo-Leyva, who matched into urology at Loma Linda University. He originally decided to become a doctor after his father was injured at work and had difficulty navigating the healthcare system because of the lack of Spanish-speaking physicians. “I thought I could make a pretty big impact, specifically here in the…Inland Empire community, since there’s a lot of Spanish-speaking folks here,” Escovedo-Leyva said.
“We are very, very thrilled for our matchers of this year, and so proud that many of our medical students matched in very competitive specialties, and many of whom will be staying home in our general area,” said Hanh The-Trinh Nguyen, MD, FAAFP, associate dean for career advising.
“I advise all of you to keep your personal statement near you, and on your most trying days, or nights when you’re on call, please reread it and never forget why you’re doing what you’re doing,” Nguyen told the crowd. “Remember, you belong there, wherever that ‘there’ is,” he added.
Cloie Chiong matched into family medicine at UC Irvine. Her father is also a physician in the Inland Empire, which she said helped her connect to the local population. “I also studied a master's in public health before this, and I really got to understand the primary care deficit that we have here,” said Chiong, who’s from Redlands and hopes to one day have her own clinic. “Being able to interact with our communities, and being part of that community, really motivated me to want to be able to give back to them as well.”
