Match Day excitement: M.D. students celebrate a career-defining moment
OHSU’s Class of 2025 discovered their residency placements during the annual Match Day event on March 21, 2025. Graduating medical students from throughout the country simultaneously found out where their next steps in their medical careers would lead. These placements are determined by a national residency matching program. (OHSU/Jordan Sleeth)
Spring is in the air and today marks a new beginning for Oregon Health & Science University School of Medicine M.D. students as they find out where they “matched” for residency training after graduation.
Led by M.D. Student Affairs Assistant Deans Benjamin Schneider, M.D., and Rebecca Cantone, M.D., the 2025 Match Day ceremony kicked off around 8:25 a.m. People gathered in anticipation as the Robertson Life Sciences Building atrium filled with family, friends, faculty and staff members.
In keeping with a long-standing tradition that unfolds at the same exact moment at all accredited medical schools in the United States, the class of 2025 tore open their match envelopes at precisely 9 a.m. Pacific Time. This moment defines their careers and their personal lives, as they find out which specialty they will pursue and where they will go to continue their medical training as residents.
“We are incredibly proud of the MD25 class as a cohort,” Schneider said. “They have demonstrated incredible resilience. Most of the class interviewed for medical school in the early days of the pandemic, so they began their journey at OHSU not knowing what their educational experience would be like. They’ve carved their own paths, leveraging remote experiences when in-person activities were impossible.”
The matching algorithm
Through a sophisticated computer algorithm, the National Resident Matching Program pairs graduating M.D. students with residency programs. Training programs create a rank list of their desired applicants. Applicants create a rank list of their desired training programs. The match is determined by an algorithm that sorts through each medical student’s list of residency programs they’d like to attend and aligns their preferences with the student chosen by the directors of residency programs.
The 126 graduating M.D. students at OHSU posted a 100% placement rate. If there was a student who didn’t match, the M.D. Program would work with them to identify alternatives, such as research or other training opportunities that will allow them to continue careers in medicine.
For 87% of the 2025 class, today also marks the last day of medical school. Because of OHSU’s time-variable, competency-based Your M.D. curriculum, the majority of fourth-year students complete their graduation requirements by the end of the third quarter. The graduation ceremony will be held in June, and most residency training programs begin in July.
“The excitement and pride we feel for our students just pumps through us at this moment when we see the results of these students’ incredible dedication,” Schneider said. “This is the first cohort to have experienced the OHSU Outreach, Advising, Support, and Identity formation for Students (OASIS) support platform across all four years of medical school. The success of this year’s class in the match is in part due to the dedication of our OASIS advising team!”
By the numbers
The M.D. Class of 2025 placements include:
- Students placed in 22 specialties in all regions of the U.S., with 38% of students placing to institutions in Oregon.
- 41% are entering primary care specialties, including internal medicine, family medicine or pediatrics.
- 33% of the M.D. students are staying at OHSU for their residency programs.
- 18% and 17% are entering internal medicine and family medicine, respectively — the most popular specialty picks for this class.
OHSU’s 27 graduate medical education residency programs that take part in the match also posted a 99.5% match rate, with 215 out of 216 slots filled. These include programs that prepare physicians for entry into specialties such as radiology, anesthesiology, ophthalmology, dermatology, radiation oncology and others.
Welcome, new alumni!
Match Day also signals students’ transition to alumni status, as many students close out their formal schooling today and look ahead to their residency training and practice as physicians.
Jasmine Fernandez
Jasmine Fernandez (Courtesy)
“My first introduction to health systems came from growing up with a brother with autism. I was encouraged by my parents to be curious, embrace uncertainty, and always do what I could to uplift others,” Fernandez said.
Fernandez is a member of the Pascua Yaqui Tribe. She says her ancestors have fought for the self-determination and health of their communities, yet so few are represented within medicine. According to the AAMC, in 2023, 0.3% of active physicians identified as American Indian or Alaska Native.
Looking to change this, Fernandez attended the University of Portland to pursue a degree in biology and got a job as an emergency department scribe. A scribe does real-time documentation, capturing and transcribing medical histories, physical examinations, diagnostic test results and treatment plans as they unfold during a patient’s emergency room visit. Fernandez liked the challenges and the dynamic environment of the emergency department. She has witnessed health disparities in her own family and was familiar with how they manifest in medical emergencies. She learned to appreciate the frontline teams that face our greatest public health challenges.
Around this time, Fernandez crossed paths with OHSU’s Northwest Native American Center of Excellence, known as NNACoE, and met for the first time a Native physician. It was a pivotal moment for her. As a NNACoE intern and later Wy’east scholar, she worked on projects aimed at dismantling systemic barriers to increase the number of indigenous students into medicine, like a novel text mentorship service. Also around this time she crossed paths with Jared Delaney. Fernandez and Delaney shared a passion for Native health and forging community on campus with other Native students. As they went through medical school, their paths aligned even more as they were drawn to emergency medicine.
“As I continue this journey, I hope to mentor the next generation of healers, especially those who come from underrepresented groups in medicine,” Fernandez said. “I’d be thrilled to match at a residency that has a strong commitment to underserved populations and health equity — but also anywhere I can bring my partner, who is also matching into emergency medicine.”
Jared Delaney
Jared Delaney (Courtesy)
Delaney, a member of the Klamath, Modoc, Yaqui, Tohono O’odham tribe and a Wy’East scholar, is Fernandez’s partner. He is the former OHSU president of the Association of Native American Medical Students, and says he is grateful for NNACoE and the Wy’East pathway.
“The entire staff supported me not only through the post-baccalaureate process but also through medical school,” he said. “They helped me foster a community and were an invaluable resource when it came to fostering opportunities for career development.”
Delaney is applying into emergency medicine. He chose the specialty because it occupies a special place within the health care system, serving as a safety net for vulnerable populations.
“What inspires and motivates me most is being a role model for Native American youth. I was told I would never make it to medical school, let alone graduate,” Delaney said. “Showing through my actions that it’s possible and interacting as a mentor for others brings me joy.”
Any two applicants can participate in a Match as a couple. Fernandez and Delaney applied as a couple, which allowed them to link their rank ordered lists. A couple will match to the most preferred pair of programs on their rank order list where each partner has been offered a position.
Megan Barney
Megan Barney (Courtesy)
For Megan Barney, Match Day came early. She knew last year where she would match because she participated in the military match, which took place on Dec. 11, 2024.
“I got matched to my top-choice residency as an orthopedic surgery intern at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas,” she said. Because of that, she had to withdraw from the civilian match, but still plans on attending this year’s celebration with her classmates.
Barney’s journey to medical school was clear in her mind, even as a young girl growing up in Temecula, California. In 8th grade, she needed orthopedic surgery on her ankle because of an injury sustained in cheerleading. She was amazed at how such a quick surgery could improve her ankle pain and instability, allowing her to continue in her sport. That year, she participated in a career development course and proclaimed she wanted to become an orthopedic surgeon. “And I never wavered from that path,” she said.
After graduating from the University of Oregon, where she earned an athletic scholarship in her sport of acrobatics and tumbling, Barney began applying for medical schools. Once she was accepted to OHSU, she applied for the Health Professionals Scholarship Program, a program that helps the Veterans Health Administration meet its need for qualified health care professionals for which recruitment or retention is difficult. That includes physicians.
“After filling out an application with a recruiter, I was able to earn a scholarship through the military to attend medical school,” Barney said. “I commissioned into the U.S. Army as a Second Lieutenant during my first month at OHSU.”
Match options in the military are more limited than in the civilian match. She looked at seven military training facilities with orthopedic surgery residency programs across the country and rotated at five of them as sub-internships. She ultimately chose Texas as her top choice.
“BAMC is the only level 1 trauma center in the Department of Defense,” she explained. “I felt as though doing my training there would give me an unparalleled experience, preparing me for both general and deployed medicine, with a focus on complex trauma.”
Tyler Yeager
Tyler Yeager (Courtesy)
Tyler Yeager never thought he would become a doctor. As a first-generation college student, he was considering a career in engineering. Both his parents are self-employed and in the building trades.
“I had always loved science, but it wasn’t until high school that I discovered my interest in medicine,” he said. “I was trying to find a class that would fit into my schedule and the only one that worked was an early morning anatomy and physiology class.”
From there, Yeager graduated with a degree in bio-health science from Oregon State University. As an undergraduate he didn’t think medical school was even a possibility, but he continued exploring his medical interests. While working as a phlebotomist at Bay Area hospital in Coos Bay, a coworker encouraged him to apply to medical school, which he decided to do — and was accepted to OHSU in 2021. During his time in Coos Bay, Yeager crossed paths with Paul Michaels, M.D., who inspired him to think about pathology as a specialty.
At OHSU, he worked with Guang Fan, M.D., Ph.D., professor and chair of pathology and laboratory medicine in the OHSU School of Medicine. His exposure to the field solidified his love for pathology.
“I know I want to work in pathology,” Yeager said. “But there are so many types of pathology. I’m not sure yet what area I’ll eventually work in. Residency will give me four years to explore my options.”
Yeager applied broadly to 11 programs and matched to his number one choice: Massachusetts General, where he plans to complete his pathology residency and eventually return to Oregon.
“I will be eternally grateful for OHSU and everything I’ve learned here,” he said. “I love academic medicine, which can only be found in urban settings, but rural Oregon also has my heart. I hope to pursue a career in academic medicine while maintaining my ties to rural Oregon and finding ways to support the community where I was raised.”
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