Pitt Medical Students Find Their Match

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- What if a computer told you where you were spending the next four years of your life?

That's exactly what's happening for a whole class of doctors-to-be.

Over the past few months, these fourth-year medical students have been interviewing at various residency programs, where they will continue their medical training after graduation to become a doctor in a specific specialty.

They rank their preferences for where they would like to go.

"It was a really hard decision ranking all 10 schools," says future emergency medicine resident, Phindile Erika Chowa.

"Seattle is where I'd like to end up," says future neurosurgery resident, James Bales. "My family is from the northwest, and I grew up in Alaska. So it would be nice to get back over to that area."

The residency programs rank the students based on their grades, recommendations and interviews.

All of this gets fed into a computer, and like a dating service, match the student with a compatible residency program.

Every year on one day in March, at medical schools across the country, they all find out where they're going.

Most people match at one of their top choices. Some people don't match at all.

"I'm so happy to have had the opportunity to go to Pitt and match at my first choice. There are a lot of people who didn't match this year. Like across the country there are 5,000 spots in medicine, only 50 open, so I'm really lucky," says Abigail Chua, a future internal medicine resident at Einstein Medical Center in the Bronx.

The students that don't match go through a whole other process to find an open slot somewhere – anywhere.

But that's not needed at Pitt this year.

"Everyone who wanted a spot got a spot," says Dean of Students at the School of Medicine, Dr. Joan Harvey.

Among the popular specialties: internal medicine, pediatrics and emergency medicine. From the class of 2012, many are staying local, but many are venturing to California, Boston, Chicago and New York.

"Over two-thirds of the students are going to one of the very top programs in the country," says Dr. Harvey proudly.

It's an emotional event, affecting not just the students, but also, potentially, their families. For the first time ever this year, through a streaming webcast, families got to watch and wait along with their favorite medical student.

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