On Match Day, Temple med students learned where they’ll spend their residency with tears, hugs, and sighs of relief

Schyler Edwards wove her way through the crowd in the lobby of Temple University’s Lewis Katz School of Medicine, clutching a white envelope.

She spotted her fiancé and a half-dozen family members and friends, all in blue T-shirts customized with her name and “Match Day 2023,” waiting to watch the fourth-year medical student learn where she would go to launch her career.

Edwards said her path to Match Day on Friday started, in many ways, when her grandparents immigrated from Guyana for more opportunity in the United States, instilling in their children the importance of higher learning. Now, their granddaughter was joining medical school graduates across the country in an annual ritual to mark the next stage of her training.

“Daddy always said, ‘If you get your education, you can get the world,’ ” said Nichelle Edwards, Schyler’s mother. A nurse, she inspired her daughter to pursue medicine. “He passed 10 years ago, but I know he’s so happy.”

In a few minutes, Edwards would learn the name and location of the hospital she’d been matched with for her residency training program. She decided to train as an ob-gyn in part to address the crisis of maternal mortality in the country, drawn to a health issue that affects Black women in particular.

Edwards, who is Black, said she “had never seen anyone who looks like me as a medical doctor” growing up. Now, she feels pride to be able to engage with Black patients on the job.

“Sometimes it’s a smile, sometimes just a look in their eyes, like ‘Oh my God, there’s a Black woman taking care of me now,’ ” she said. “There’s an ease that comes with it, someone who comes from a similar cultural and racial background, who maybe is familiar with her neighborhood.”

Her top choice for residency: the University of California San Francisco (UCSF), whose obstetrics program had interested her for its diverse class of residents and commitment to equity in health care.

Just before noon, Katz dean Amy Goldberg walked up to a podium at the front of the room and told Edwards and her classmates to ready themselves.

“Is everyone excited? Is everyone a little bit nervous? I know exactly how you feel,” she said, holding up her own residency letter from Match Day in 1987. “I still have this, and it means the world to me, because it sent me here — to Temple.”

Then she realized it was just seconds before noon and launched into a hasty countdown. All at once, the students opened their envelopes.

Edwards screamed with joy. Inside her envelope was a letter from UCSF.

The Temple graduates who matched are among 42,952 who completed the application process, according to data released Friday by the National Resident Matching Program, the nonprofit that manages the process. Overall, more than 90% of U.S. graduates landed a position.

» READ MORE: On Match Day, medical students learn where they’ll start work as doctors. Four at Jefferson offer an inside look at the process.

Demetrius Woodard is among those who wanted to stay in Philadelphia, which is home to more than 130 residency programs. Born and raised in Kingsessing, he hopes to work with patients in his own neighborhood after completing a residency in psychiatry.

He matched with the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, a top-ranked program. As his family cheered, he held up his letter and looked skyward.

“Whatever realm of medicine I work in, I want to go back to my community in Southwest Philly and make that difference,” he said.

Denise Woodard, his mother, wiped away tears. “He never gives up, he does it with such ease, and he’s been like this since he was a little baby,” she said.

And her son would be back in their neighborhood: “I really didn’t want him to live far away,” she said, laughing.

Nearby, Timothy Yeung sighed with relief. He had matched with a program at Loma Linda University Medical Center near his home in Los Angeles, where he’d hoped to return. His mother, Ina, also a Temple alumna, made the trip here to watch him open his envelope.

Yeung will complete his residency in emergency medicine, which for the second straight year has been losing appeal with applicants. More than 550 emergency medicine residency spots went initially unfilled in this year’s match, including local programs at Jefferson Health and Einstein, likely due to burnout from the pandemic, staffing shortages, and the stress of treating the most acute patients. (Many of those spots were filled by the end of the week.)

Yeung, though, says he’s drawn to the specialty because it allows him to help people “on the worst day of their lives.”

Goldberg said in an interview after the ceremony that many Temple students are drawn to combat disparities in health care during their time at Temple. “They’re particularly ready to leave Temple and spread what they’ve learned about health equity — and the lack thereof — in this country,” she said.

Behind her, Woodard slapped the back of a classmate who’d landed a residency at Harvard University’s Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.

Edwards hugged a friend who had also matched at UCSF, in the pediatric department. “That’s who you’ll be sending your kids to,” a professor quipped.

Standing in the throng of blue-shirted relatives, Edwards’ grandmother hugged family members and sobbed, unable to speak.

“I don’t think anything can beat this moment,” Edwards said.

Inquirer staff writer Abraham Gutman contributed to this article.