The envelope, please …

For graduating medical students across the country, Match Day is a rite of passage.

Each March, the nationwide event celebrates the moment they learn the residency programs to which they’ve been “matched” – and where they’ll first practice as doctors. Opening the envelope that holds their future signifies the transition from classroom to clinic.

This year’s Match Day is Friday, March 21. While graduating medical students at UC Irvine won’t earn their M.D.s till May, those who wish to participate in this festive, emotional ceremony will gather outside the Medical Education Building at 8 a.m., each waiting for his or her name to be called.

Here are three of their stories:

‘Change medicine for the better’

Cassandra Smith’s interest in the medical field blossomed in the third grade, after helping her quadriplegic neighbor tend to her flower garden.

Driven by a desire to care for others, the Kansas native went on to earn bachelor’s degrees in life science and nursing. Then, Smith says, during six years as an ER nurse, she fell in love with the fast pace and inclusive nature of emergency medicine.

“You see everyone who walks in the door regardless of their immigration or insurance status,” she says. “We’re going to see them and give them the best possible care.”

Pursuing her dream of going to medical school, Smith decided to attend UC Irvine for its PRIME LEAD-ABC program, designed to produce physician-leaders committed to serving the unique needs of African, Black and Caribbean communities and reducing healthcare disparities.

“Growing up as a Black woman and seeing my family and other people doubt the healthcare system or not have access to healthcare, and seeing how disproportionately this affects communities of color, it’s important to have these programs to not only teach us how to be better for our own populations, but also teach others who are passionate about serving these communities,” she says.

Smith’s participation in extracurricular activities as a medical student has included roles in student government and leadership positions within PRIME LEAD-ABC. She also helped launch the emergency medicine department’s Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Alliance, a mentorship group for medical students who are traditionally underrepresented in healthcare.

“Having people who are passionate about uplifting future generations is going to change medicine for the better,” Smith says. “I love paying it forward and doing that for others. I’ve seen so much positive change at UCI since I’ve been here, and I want to leave it the best way possible when I graduate.”

She hopes to match in emergency medicine. After completing her residency, Smith plans to pursue a fellowship in administration or medical education, with the hope that she can continue to improve the healthcare system for “communities that need it the most.”

‘An instrument of caretaking’

For Kathleen Powers, the journey to medical school began in the humanities.

In 2011, as an undergraduate at Yale University, she traveled to Tunisia during the Arab Spring for research, and while interacting with student protesters there, Powers began to recognize hospitals as sites of “meaning making” – places that people continually return to as sources of support, places that are continually interpreted and reinterpreted.

Her interest in medicine grew stronger as, at UC Berkeley, she pursued a Ph.D. in rhetoric, an interdisciplinary humanities program that’s particularly strong in classics as well as the philosophy and history of science. After studying the Greek tragedy “Antigone” in her first year – and its view of the body as an object of reverence, concern and caretaking – Powers began a postbaccalaureate premedical program through UC Berkeley Extension alongside her Ph.D., intending to go to medical school.

“There’s something really fascinating about reading that play and then pursuing medicine,” she says. “Philosophy is preoccupied with existence, and medicine’s concept of existence is life. The two are similar – practicing medicine is to practice philosophy in the way that you are dealing in the principles that organize the phenomenon of life. Medicine takes principles, like cellular metabolism or how drugs work on neuronal receptors, as a charge to work on and manage in pursuit of the maintenance of life.”

Entering medical school, Powers was drawn to the curiosity and free exchange of ideas innate to UC Irvine. She has participated in student organizations such as the Association of Women Surgeons and Plexus, the School of Medicine’s medical humanities journal, of which she’s the 2024-25 co-editor-in-chief.

During her third year of medical school, Powers also taught as a visiting philosophy professor at Deep Springs College, located on a ranch and farm in the California high desert. The experience solidified her desire to pursue a surgical residency, specifically rural or trauma surgery.

“Living and teaching at Deep Springs gave me a framework for thinking differently about the relationship between theory and practice,” Powers says. “As a rural or trauma surgeon participating in the care of people who come from afar, often in frightening circumstances, you’re responsible for the body in front of you but also the management of fear and crisis. Being a part of that care would be the privilege of a lifetime.”

She adds: “As a surgeon, your whole self becomes an instrument of caretaking. It’s not just your scalpel; it’s you.”

‘Serving everyone possible’

Konnor Davis’ first exposure to the medical field, at age 10, came from watching his sister battle non-Hodgkin lymphoma. During appointments, her oncologist would show him the radiation machine and different medical instruments, sparking a lingering curiosity.

His high school biology teacher later planted the idea of becoming a doctor in his mind, which eventually led him to UC Davis. While earning a bachelor’s degree in biological sciences, Davis participated in emergency medicine research and psychiatry research at the UC Davis MIND Institute. He continued there for two years postgraduation before applying to medical school.

Coming to UC Irvine, Davis used his enthusiasm for emergency medicine as a benchmark for comparison with other specialties. He always returned to emergency medicine.

“I like the patient interactions and forming rapport and trust in a short amount of time, but I really like that I can care for literally anyone – any language, insurance, gender, sex, condition,” Davis says. “I will never turn someone away. That was the most important thing to me: serving everyone possible.”

During his second year of medical school, he helped start ZotUnity, a career advising, wellness and academic support program for UC Irvine medical students – in which Davis has held leadership positions and been a tutor. He also participated in the Emergency Medicine Interest Group.

“I knew I’d never get an opportunity like this again – to be a sponge, absorbing information both in and outside the hospital – so I said yes to everything,” Davis says. “I can’t imagine the type of person I would be if I wasn’t at Irvine gaining these opportunities and mentors like Alisa Wray and Lauren Stokes.”

Postresidency, he hopes to complete additional training in both pediatric emergency medicine and medical education and conduct research within these fields.