Match Making

Four sleep-deprived, stress-filled years finally paid off Wednesday for medical student James Chu when he became the first in his class to find out where his career will begin.

As cheap champagne chilled on ice beneath bunches of blue and yellow balloons outside Irvine Hall, 25-year-old Chu of Laguna Beach was handed a white envelope telling him he’s headed to the pediatrics division at Irvine Medical Center.

“I’m going to stick an IV in my arm and start running margaritas through it,” said Chu after finding out he was accepted to serve his residency at one of his top three choices.

It was perhaps the most important day in the careers of Chu and 82 other students at UC Irvine College of Medicine taking part in a long-awaited ritual called Match Day--the day when graduating students are matched with a hospital for residency training.

Beneath sunny skies, nervous students held hands with family and friends as they waited for their turn to approach the lectern to accept the envelope holding their fate.

To ease tensions, professors asked each student to throw a dollar bill into a doctor’s bag, as a consolation prize for the nervous wreck who was called last.

Most students responded to the news with sighs of relief and big hugs. Some demonstrated, well, less-than-perfect bedside manner by screaming and spraying Asti Spumanti on their classmates. None seemed too disappointed.

“I’m elated, totally blown away,” said Ashley Christiani, 27, of Long Beach, the last to receive an envelope. She will complete her training at Santa Monica-UCLA Medical Center, concentrating on family medicine.

“It was the first choice for me. . . . This program is all I’ve been talking about for the past few weeks,” Christiani said as she held a bouquet of spring flowers in her arms and sipped champagne from a plastic cup. She was headed to the nearest bar where she planned to use the $83 consolation prize to buy drinks for her classmates. Professors cooperated by canceling classes so students could celebrate.

Each year, graduating medical students choose their specialties and teaching hospitals where they most want to train, and then hope for the best as the hospitals, in turn, choose them.

“Most of the students in medical school are the best of the best, the creme de la creme,” said medical student Michael Sheety, 25, of Irvine. “They’re used to being No. 1, used to getting what they want and if they don’t it can be pretty earth-shattering. Luckily, we didn’t see that.”

Some students pick hospitals based on their geographical locations while others select them for their reputations. Most will spend five to seven years training as interns and residents at the assigned hospitals.

Of UC Irvine’s graduating medical school class, 58 students have chosen to train in a primary-care specialty, which includes family medicine, internal medicine, obstetrics and gynecology and pediatrics. Twenty-five students selected specialty fields such as ophthalmology, dermatology, anesthesiology, and urology among others.

The UCI students represent only a small portion of the estimated 14,000 graduating medical students nationwide who were matched with hospitals Wednesday.

“You have to look at this as the beginning of life after school for these young doctors,” said Thomas Cesario, dean of UC Irvine College of Medicine. “In many cases, they will be moving across the country, relocating and sometimes never move back again.

“It’s sad to lose a group you’ve worked closely with for four years,” Cesario said, “but there’s also a satisfaction knowing you’re putting doctors out there who you feel confident in and whose services are in demand by others.”