In the moments before the clock struck noon on Friday, March 21, students from the MD Class of 2025 sat nervously with their families and friends. In each of their hands, or laying nearby, were their Match Day envelopes waiting to be unsealed.
And then, when the time finally came, the ballroom at the Delta Hotels by Marriott Kalamazoo Conference Center filled with cheers and shouts of elation as the aspiring physicians learned where they will complete their residency training after their time at WMed concludes in May.
“You belong here,” M4 Tierra Jolly told her classmates during her remarks at the Match Day festivities. “I need those of you who have ever questioned it to hear that. I need you to know it in your bones."
Match Day is a time-honored tradition, a moment each year when students at WMed join other fourth-year students from medical schools across the country to learn where they will spend the next three or more years as resident physicians. The festivities are a culmination of the nearly four years they have spent in Kalamazoo learning about the science and art behind medicine.
In the time that passed before they opened their Match Day envelopes on March 21, the more than 80 students who make up the Class of 2025 greeted one another with hugs and smiles, and the ballroom was filled with a nervous energy and anticipation.
Students and their guests were able to enjoy light snacks as they heard remarks from M4 Tierra Jolly. There were plenty of opportunities to capture photos at the event with WMed backdrops and the Match Day pin map. Students also got the chance to take the stage to share their Match results with guests at the event, which was livestreamed on the medical school’s YouTube channel and website at wmed.edu/matchday.
Key Highlights from this year’s Match
- 98% of the students in the Class of 2025 matched to a residency slot as part of a nationwide process that is increasingly competitive.
- Six students from the Class of 2025 matched to residency slots at WMed and will complete their training in Kalamazoo in the specialties of Emergency Medicine, General Surgery (MIDOCs), Internal Medicine (MIDOCs), Obstetrics and Gynecology, and Orthopaedic Surgery. They will join the 200-plus physicians-in-training in the medical school’s 15 residency and fellowship programs.
- 21 students will remain in Michigan for residency, working in hospitals in Detroit, East Lansing, Grand Rapids, Kalamazoo, Lansing, Pontiac, Royal Oak, and Traverse City.
- 35 students will complete their training in a specialty that could lead to a career in primary care.
- Four students are recipients of a scholarship from the F. Edward Hébert Armed Forces Health Professions Scholarship Program (HPSP) and will complete their residency training at a military medical center.
- WMed students will train in residency programs in 27 different states across the U.S.
The students will complete their training in the following specialties and programs:
Anesthesiology
- Brown University Health Rhode Island Hospital, Rhode Island
- Ohio State University Medical Center, Ohio
Child Neurology
- University of California-San Francisco, California
Diagnostic Radiology
- Loyola University Medical Center, Illinois
Emergency Medicine
- Corewell Health William Beaumont University Hospital, Michigan (2)
- Henry Ford St. John Hospital, Michigan
- Madigan Army Medical Center, Washington
- Oregon Health and Science University, Oregon
- St. Johns Riverside Hospital, New York
- University of Arizona College of Medicine-Tucson, Arizona
- University of Chicago Medical Center, Illinois
- University of Utah Health, Utah
- WMU Homer Stryker M.D. School of Medicine, Michigan
Family Medicine
- Altru Health System, North Dakota
- Bayhealth Medical Center, Delaware
- Dignity Northridge Hospital Medical Center, California
- Medical University of South Carolina, South Carolina
- MultiCare Health System, Washington
- Munson Medical Center, Michigan
General Surgery
- Charleston Area Medical Center, West Virginia
- Corewell Health-Grand Rapids at Michigan State University, Michigan
- New York Medical College-Metropolitan Hospital Center, New York
- University of New Mexico School of Medicine, New Mexico
- University of North Dakota, North Dakota
- WMU Homer Stryker M.D. School of Medicine, Michigan
Internal Medicine
- Boston University Medical Center, Massachusetts
- California Pacific Medical Center, California
- Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, California
- Cleveland Clinic, Ohio (2)
- Cook County Health and Hospital Systems, Illinois
- Corewell Health-Grand Rapids at Michigan State University, Michigan
- Henry Ford St. John Hospital, Michigan
- McLaren Health Care-Lansing, Michigan
- Montefiore Medical Center-Einstein Campus, New York
- Olive View-UCLA Medical Center, California (2)
- Scripps Mercy Hospital San Diego, California
- University of California Irvine Medical Center, California
- University of Chicago Medical Center-North Shore, Illinois
- University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics, Iowa
- University of Maryland Medical Center, Maryland
- University of North Carolina Hospitals, North Carolina
- WMU Homer Stryker M.D. School of Medicine, Michigan (2)
- Wright-Patterson Air Force Base Medical Center, Ohio
Medicine-Pediatrics
- Loma Linda University, California
- University of Cincinnati Medical Center, Ohio
- Virginia Commonwealth University Health System, Virginia
Neurology
- Trinity Health Grand Rapids, Michigan
- University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, Texas
- University of Wisconsin Hospital and Clinics, Wisconsin
Obstetrics and Gynecology
- Boston University Medical Center, Massachusetts
- Henry Ford St. John Hospital, Michigan
- Medical College of Georgia, Georgia
- Montefiore Medical Center-Einstein Campus, New York
- University of Michigan Health Sparrow Lansing, Michigan
- University of Tennessee Health Science Center, Tennessee
- University of Toledo, Ohio
- Virtua Health, New Jersey
- WMU Homer Stryker M.D. School of Medicine, Michigan
Orthopaedic Surgery
- Mount Carmel Health System, Ohio
- University of California San Francisco School of Medicine Fresno Medical Education Program, California
- University of North Dakota School of Medicine, North Dakota
- University of Wisconsin Hospital and Clinics, Wisconsin
- WMU Homer Stryker M.D. School of Medicine, Michigan
Otolaryngology
- St. Luke’s Hospital-Anderson Campus, Pennsylvania
- University of Minnesota Medical School, Minnesota
Pediatrics
- Corewell Health-Grand Rapids at Michigan State University, Michigan (2)
- Madigan Army Medical Center, Washington
- San Antonio Uniformed Services Health Education Consortium, Texas
- University of Chicago Medical Center, Illinois
Pediatrics/Child Neurology
- Children’s Hospital-Oakland, California
Psychiatry
- Kaiser Permanente Fontana Medical Center, California
- Medical College of Wisconsin Affiliated Hospitals and Clinics-Milwaukee, Wisconsin
- Michigan State University College of Human Medicine-East Lansing, Michigan
Radiation Oncology
- Case Western Reserve University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center, Ohio
Transitional Year
- Ascension Resurrection, Illinois
- McLaren Health Care-Oakland, Michigan
- Spokane Teaching Health Center, Washington
- Weiss Memorial Hospital, Illinois
The 2025 Main Residency Match process began in the summer of 2024 for fourth-year students at WMed and other medical students across the country as they prepared applications to residency programs at which they wanted to train. As part of the process, program directors review applications and conduct candidate interviews in the fall and early winter. During the month of March, applicants submitted to the National Residency Matching Program (NRMP) their rank order lists of preferred programs, and program directors ranked applicants in order of preference for training. The NRMP uses a computerized mathematical algorithm to match applicants with programs using the preferences expressed on their rank lists.
As they look ahead, students in the Class of 2025 will complete the final months of the fourth-year curriculum at WMed, which culminates in May with a commencement ceremony at WMU’s Miller Auditorium in Kalamazoo. The event, which is scheduled for 4 p.m. on Thursday, May 8, 2025, is open to the public and tickets are not required.