Since age 3, Veronica Treviño has known what she wants to be. A pediatrician.
One day, 3-year-old Treviño asked her parents what her pediatrician did. They answered it was the person that ensures she’s healthy.
“No, no, but what is it called? Because that’s what I want to be,” Treviño said.
Treviño, a fourth-year medical student in the UTRGV School of Medicine, learned on Match Day she had been selected for the residency program at Driscoll Children’s Hospital.
“It’s surreal. It’s exciting. It’s nerve wracking. But it’s an amazing feeling,” she said.
Last Friday was Match Day, a national event in which fourth-year medical students learn where they will be completing their residency.
This year, there are 39 students graduating from the UTRGV School of Medicine. This is the first graduating class from the School of Medicine, and all 39 students have been matched to a residency program.
“We had a 100% match, and that’s not so common,” said Betty Monfort, senior assistant dean for admissions for the School of Medicine. “Many schools have 95, 98, 99. We had 100%.”
One student was matched to Columbia University’s New York Presbyterian Hospital. Another student was matched to Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Tennessee, while others will complete their residency programs at Northwestern Medicine Lake Forest Hospital in Illinois, Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, and more.
“It’s unbelievable where these kids have matched for a ‘small little medical school by the border’ with the first class,” Monfort said.
Residency programs are for specialization as a physician. After receiving their basic medical education at the university, students are now ready to decide what type of specialization they want to work in, Monfort said.
Applying to a residency program is similar to the school admissions process, she said. Students search which programs offer their chosen specialization. They then apply to the programs, and the university sends their information to the selected programs. If chosen, students are then interviewed by the programs. The students then rank which programs they liked the most, and then a computer program, known as the “match,” matches the students to the best program, Monfort said.
Each year, on Match Day, the students are given an envelope that contains the program they are matched to. Across the nation, students open the envelopes at the exact same time. However, due to COVID-19, this ceremony had to be canceled. Instead, students were sent an email with a digital envelope that said which program the students had matched to, Monfort said.
Some students opened it “with their family, some with their wives, some in small groups,” she said.
Twenty-five of the 39 students will stay in Texas to complete their residency programs. Thirteen of the students are from the Rio Grande Valley, and seven of them will stay in the Valley, Monfort said.
“We’re very happy that seven of them are staying here with us at DHR and Valley Baptist,” she said. “And that’s what this medical school was made for. To have our … graduates to decide to stay at home and help, and I’m sure many of them, after they get their specialties, will return.”
After students complete their three- or four-year residency program, they may join a practice or open their own. Another option is to go into a fellowship, Monfort said.
“A fellowship is where they say, ‘OK, I’ve done surgery. Now, I know how to be a general surgeon, but now, I really want to be a cancer surgeon. So now, I’m going to do a fellowship, which is one or two years, and really specialize in just cancer surgery,’” she said.
Treviño is unsure if she will do a fellowship. Whether she does or not, her dream has always been to return to the Valley and open a private practice.
“That’s always been the dream,” she said.
During Treviño’s life, her father was often sick with medical issues, and she personally saw how his doctors impacted not only her father’s life, but her mother’s, his mother’s, his siblings’, and her own. This helped motivate her to pursue a career in the medical field.
“The ripple effect that one person in the medical field can make, when they help someone or save someone’s life, was beautiful to me,” she said.
Treviño encourages students to “be as involved in campus life as you possibly can.”
“Be as well-rounded as you can be, because that is where we’re leaning towards as a medical field,” she said. “Not only are you smart enough, but can you be a good person to your patients? But at the end of the day, what gets your foot in the door is your grades, so don’t let that slip, either.”
Treviño also advises students to not let others discourage them.
“Don’t let anybody tell you that you can’t do it,” she said. “That seems like a very cliché answer, but it is so true because so many people told me that I wasn’t good enough, wasn’t smart enough, wasn’t disciplined enough. And we’re here. … We made it.”
Dr. Leonel Vela, senior associate vice president for Education and Academic Affairs, said the success from Match Day impacts everyone in the School of Medicine from the graduating students to future medical students.
It is “a very important quality measure” for the School of Medicine that the entire charter class was matched to top residencies, Vela said.
“It leaves an important foundation … for us in the School of Medicine, so that given the success and given the quality of the residency the students have been accepted to, it … opens up opportunities … for future medical students when they apply to residencies,” he said.
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