Match Day is the most festive event on the School of Medicine calendar. It’s when graduating UC Irvine medical students learn where they’ll start their careers as doctors. On Friday, March 21, 100 students in the class of 2014 participated, matching with 52 different residency programs at hospitals and university medical centers across the country. As part of the tradition, each future doctor is called – one at a time – to a balloon-festooned podium to open an envelope and read aloud before hundreds of family members, friends and classmates the name and location of the hospital where he or she will spend the next three to seven years pursuing postgraduate medical training. Match Day is always filled with emotion, but this year, student Laura Doan received a double surprise. In the letter announcing her residency in family medicine at Kaiser Permanente Los Angeles Medical Center was also a marriage proposal from her boyfriend, Dr. Nathanael Heckmann, a 2013 UC Irvine School of Medicine graduate who’s now a resident in orthopedic surgery at USC. A shocked and overjoyed Doan turned to see her future husband on one knee, engagement ring in hand. On Match Day, dreams can come true.
Julio Cesar Monterrey, the final UC Irvine medical student to open his Match Day letter, celebrates by tossing cash in the air. The tradition is that each student called to the podium to learn where he or she will serve as a resident tucks a dollar into an old-fashioned doctor’s bag, with the last one keeping the cash.
Steve Zylius / UC IrvineSamantha Costantini (in red) gets a congratulatory hug from a friend at UC Irvine’s annual Match Day ceremony, in which fourth-year medical students find out via letter where they’ll spend their residencies.
Steve Zylius / UC IrvineAn elated Laura Doan shows off the engagement ring she just accepted from Dr. Nathanael Heckmann, a 2013 graduate of UC Irvine’s School of Medicine who’s now an orthopedic surgery resident at USC. He proposed in Doan’s Match Day letter.
Steve Zylius / UC IrvineMark Deppe, assistant director of student government at UC Irvine, captures the moment his fiancee, Nicole Roberts, opens her letter at Friday’s Match Day ceremony outside the campus’s School of Medicine.
Steve Zylius / UC IrvineSean Campbell (right) exults after learning that he’ll serve a residency in pathology at Stanford Medical Center.
Steve Zylius / UC IrvineUC Irvine medical student Stephanie Frangos celebrates with her mom, Lisa Frangos, after finding out she’ll be going to Children’s Hospital Los Angeles for her residency.
Steve Zylius / UC IrvineTanzeem Islam (right) gets emotional as her husband, Omair Javed, reads her Match Day letter. Javed is currently a resident at Cleveland Clinic, and Islam just learned that she’ll spend a year at St. Vincent Charity Medical Center–also in Cleveland–before heading to George Washington University.
Steve Zylius / UC IrvineWith his Match Day letter in hand, medical student Givenchy Manzano is embraced by his mother, Mary Jane Manzano, as his brother Wilfred looks on.
Steve Zylius / UC IrvineMedical student Adam Spjute celebrates his match with wife Karen and sons Parker, 1, and Wesley, 3.
Steve Zylius / UC IrvineSamantha Costantini is congratulated after learning she’ll be a resident in emergency medicine at UC Irvine Medical Center.
Steve Zylius / UC IrvineUC Irvine School of Medicine Dean Ralph Clayman kicks off the annual Match Day ceremony.
Steve Zylius / UC Irvine
