86 Future Doctors Face Day of Destiny

Medical student Kirsten Truman’s future was handed to her Wednesday in a plain white envelope in front of a balloon- bedecked plaza packed with family and friends.

It was a tense moment, but one that ended with an exhilarated shout from Truman, who hopes to become a family doctor in a rural community.

“I’m so happy,” said Truman, 31, after learning that she is headed to Merrithew Memorial Hospital in Martinez, Calif., after graduation to pursue the next vital step of her medical training. “This was my first choice. I’m going home, back to Northern California.”

Truman was one of 86 medical school students taking part in the nerve-racking ritual called Match Day at the UC Irvine College of Medicine.

The group included the class’ oldest student, Mike Moore, 44, of Santa Ana, who enrolled in medical school after a career in the aerospace industry, and its youngest, Santosh Nandi, a 19-year-old from Pasadena who skipped high school altogether.

For 14,500 medical students nationwide, Match Day--the day when graduating students are matched with a hospital for residency training--has become a rite of spring.

“This is among the biggest days in these kids’ lives,” said Tom Cesario, dean of the UCI medical school. “This is, probably more than any other single event, the day they find out where they are going to spend the rest of their lives. This is the last step before they launch their careers as physicians and a key factor in where they will settle.”

Fresno will be the destination of Suzanne White, 29, another of the increasing number of medical students of the 1990s who want to specialize in family medicine. The UC program in Fresno was her fourth choice, but she celebrated with her colleagues nonetheless.

“I’m happy,” White said. “It’s a small program and community-based, so it’s a good choice for me.”

Of UC Irvine’s graduating medical school class, 53 students, or 61%, have chosen to train in a primary-care specialty, which includes family medicine, internal medicine, obstetrics and gynecology, and pediatrics, according to school officials. Nationwide, interest in the fields of anesthesiology and diagnostic radiology is declining dramatically, officials said.

At UCI, 21 of the graduating medical students chose family medicine. “It used to be ‘Family medicine? Oh, you couldn’t get into anything better?’ but not anymore,” Truman said. “People today are much more interested in preventive medicine and teaching people how to take care of themselves. My personal feeling is it’s because there are a lot more women in medicine. There is something different about the way we do things and the way we think.”

There will be no small town in the future for Moore, the oldest graduate, who sounded like the youngest when he heard the news. The father of two and native of Wales will be going to UC San Francisco’s medical center, his first pick.

“I’m stoked!” Moore said as he hugged his wife, Janis. “I spent 11 years as an engineer in aerospace, and you know what happened to aerospace. This is great, but I owe it all to my wife. I could not have done this without her support.”

The tightknit class has joked for years that Moore is the “adopted father” of Nandi, the 19-year-old who moves on to the Cleveland Clinic Foundation for his training in general surgery. Nandi went from junior high school directly into Cal State Los Angeles and then to medical school, a difficult career path made much easier by the camaraderie of the class, he said.

“I was a little nervous when I got here because I was so young, but my classmates have been great,” Nandi said. “It’s been a wonderful four years.”