Ula Lewandowski, COM ’19 gets her first pick of residencies
MATCH DAY STRIKES AGAIN
Students from the COM Class of 2019 arrived mid-morning to campus following a two-year absence. For some, it was the first time they had been back to UNE COM since heading out on their third year rotations. With only a few months of medical school left before graduation, students joined their classmates, friends, and family in the Ripich Commons to celebrate Match Day.
Evident in those first few moments before noon was the quiet anticipation leading up to the final reveal when students would learn where they would spend their next few years in residency. News Center Maine interviewed fourth-year COM students, Annie Liu and Amy Callahan, along with Dean Jane Carreiro, DO ‘88 to talk about the shortage of Primary Care Physicians in Maine and how Senator Susan Collins is advocating for more residency opportunities in the state in order to allow more students to practice in Maine.
The President of UNE, James Herbert, PhD, spoke to how UNE COM is Maine’s number one supplier of physicians. One in eight physicians in the state graduated from UNE COM, which is a significant accomplishment. Associate Dean Guy DeFeo, DO ’88 added that UNE COM’s match rate for this year is 99%; the national average for allopathic medical schools is 93.9% and 84.6% for osteopathic schools.
Five minutes before noon, Amy Callahan, COM ‘19 gave a heart-warming toast to her classmates, congratulating them for the choice they made to pursue medicine, for embarking on this shared journey and emerging from years of sweat and sacrifice with “grace and dignity.” They started together on August 3rd, 2015 at Orientation, and will graduate less than four years later on May 18th, 2019. They have assisted with births and deaths, have offered healing and a compassionate ear to their patients, and now they will begin a new story together.