Resident applicants at the Augusta University/University of Georgia Medical Partnership gathered on Friday in George Hall on the UGA Health Sciences Campus for Match Day, an event celebrating the next step in their medical careers.

“This is the 10th successful match at the Medical Partnership, and we are pleased to announce that every student from the Class of 2023 matched into a residency program,” said campus dean Dr. Shelley Nuss.

“The accomplishments of these 37 MCG students have landed them at top-tier residency programs across the nation. The students will be going to 16 different states in 14 different specialties, with 54 percent staying in the southeastern United States and 54 percent joining primary care programs. Thank you to the faculty, administrators, staff and physician mentors in our community who have devoted their time and efforts to educating our future physicians.”

Individual boxes addressed to each member of the Class of 2023 were opened at noon. Inside each box was a personal letter revealing where the student will pursue his or her postgraduate medical education. To honor St. Patrick’s Day, this year’s Match Day theme was the color green.

An annual event, Match Day takes place after students participate in interviews and visits to residency programs in Georgia and across the country. To determine the postgraduation assignments, the students ranked residency programs where they would like to complete their training, at the same time the residency programs ranked the student applicants. The lists are then submitted to the nonprofit organization National Resident Matching Program (NRMP) in Washington, D.C., which uses an algorithm that aligns the choices of the applicants with those of the residency programs. Most students were matched via the NRMP, but some students participated in smaller match programs, including ophthalmology. The final pairings are announced simultaneously across the U.S. at noon on Match Day.

Some of the most popular specialties from the Medical Partnership Class of 2023 included family medicine (7), pediatrics (6), internal medicine (3), anesthesia (3) and psychiatry (3).