Mount Sinai’s Class of 2021 received locked boxes that contained sealed envelopes with the names of the residency programs they had matched to. At noon on Match Day, they were given the code to unlock their boxes.
One-hundred forty-five students at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai learned what the next phase of their career path would be at Match Day 2021, when each of them opened a carefully sealed envelope that revealed the U.S. residency program they had “matched” to and would be attending this year following graduation. The suspenseful moments leading up to their collective and coordinated noontime “discoveries” were shared over Zoom on Friday, March 19, with 400 participants, including family, friends, and Mount Sinai faculty and staff who supported the Class of 2021 with smiles, cheers, and words of encouragement.
Each year, the matches are orchestrated through the National Resident Matching Program (NRMP), which uses mathematical algorithms to align the preferences of applicants with the preferences of residency programs available at teaching hospitals across the nation. Match Day 2021 was the largest in the NRMP’s history, with more than 42,000 applicants.
Almost two-thirds of Mount Sinai’s students will be entering residency programs at the nation’s top 20 hospitals, including Massachusetts General Hospital, Brigham & Women’s Hospital, Johns Hopkins Hospital, the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, Barnes Jewish Hospital, and the Cleveland Clinic. The Class of 2021 will pursue specialties such as Emergency Medicine, Anesthesiology, Pediatrics, Psychiatry, Otolaryngology, Obstetrics and Gynecology, General Surgery, and Internal Medicine—the most popular discipline, which drew 33 students.
Sixty-seven Icahn Mount Sinai students will enter residencies at the Mount Sinai Health System, which runs the largest residency program in the country. These Mount Sinai alumni will be joined by newcomers to the Health System—including students from 18 of the nation’s top 20 medical schools—all of whom will begin their programs in July. Residents from leading medical schools in countries such as Argentina, India, Ireland, and Japan will be among them.
James Blum, who matched to the Emergency Medicine program at Boston Medical Center, said, “I am so excited to be heading to Boston to care for patients at an incredible institution that values health equity, where I can continue the work I started at Mount Sinai to expand access to health care.” As a medical student, Mr. Blum assumed progressive leadership roles with Mount Sinai’s East Harlem Health Outreach Partnership (EHHOP), a student-run, physician-supervised free clinic that conducts more than 1,000 patient visits annually for people who live in East Harlem.
Students Chloe Getrajdman and Jonathan Pan were excited about their next steps, too. Ms. Getrajdman will be specializing in Obstetrics and Gynecology as a resident at Mount Sinai. The time she spent working at EHHOP’s Women’s Health Clinic, she says, “has inspired me to continue working with the East Harlem community and alongside physicians who are passionate about providing care to underserved populations.” Mr. Pan, who also held leadership roles in EHHOP, will be pursuing a combined Internal Medicine and Pediatrics residency in Houston, at Baylor College of Medicine.
Dennis S. Charney, MD, Anne and Joel Ehrenkranz Dean, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, and President for Academic Affairs, Mount Sinai Health System, congratulated the students on their “fantastic” match results. He said the COVID-19 pandemic had posed enormous challenges for the entire medical community and that Mount Sinai’s students had played an important role in helping the Health System. He said they had also become more resilient along the way.
“This has been a year like no other,” he told the students. “You will never forget your fourth year in medical school and that is a good thing because you have grown to become not only outstanding physicians but also resilient individuals. When you meet challenges later on in life you will look back on this year with pride and say, ‘I can overcome this obstacle.’”