TEMPLE, Texas (March 25, 2009) - Members of the Class of 2009 at the Texas A&M Health Science Center College of Medicine participated in the nationwide Match Day on Thursday, March 19, held this year at the Cultural Activities Center in Temple. Students gathered for a class photo at 10 a.m., then had time to mingle with their classmates, family and friends until 11 a.m. when college dean, Dr. Christopher Colenda, passed out the envelopes.

Envelopes are handed out to the class at random, but they all must wait to open them until the last name is called. And although the last recipient must wait the longest, he or she is rewarded by getting to take home the fishbowl of money, filled to the brim by faculty, staff and classmates.

The first envelope this year went to David Galloway, who matched in pediatrics in Arizona. Both couples in the class, McLean and Cheryl Sanborn and Matt Brown and Becky James, matched together, in San Antonio and Cleveland, Ohio, respectively. Glenn Walker matched in surgery in Dallas, just hours after his wife gave birth to their daughter. And Nitasha Thomson, who is headed to Washington, D.C., was rewarded with the longest wait and the fishbowl of cash.

Of the 76 students in the class, 37 matched to residencies in Texas (48.7% of the class), followed by seven in Arizona, four in both California in Tennessee, and three each in Minnesota and Ohio. In all, students matched to residencies in 20 states and the District of Columbia.

The most popular specialty was internal medicine with 13 students (17% of the class), followed by 11 in pediatrics (14.5%), eight in OB/GYN (10.5%), seven each in emergency medicine and family medicine (9.2%) and four in surgery (5.3%).

Thirty-two members of the class, or 42 percent of the class, matched into primary care specialties, categorized as family medicine, internal medicine and pediatrics.

Fifteen students matched with residencies at Scott & White in Temple, two with military residencies on both coasts (San Diego and Washington, D.C.) and one with the College of Medicine Family Medicine Residency program in Bryan.

Congratulations to the Class of 2009!

Check out the links below for more facts and figures about where the Class of 2009 will be doing their residencies and what fields they're going into:

• Residency Position Statistics
• Special Residency Categories
• NRMP Statistics
• Residencies by State
• Cumulative Residency Positions

 Photos from the 2009 Match Day can be viewed at: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Texas-AM-Health-Science-Center-College-of-Medicine/64257055967