Match Day is just the beginning for Medical College of Georgia’s ‘COVID class’

AUGUSTA, Ga. (WRDW/WAGT) – Friday was the day the scholars from the Medical Faculty of Georgia came upon the place they’re going for his or her residency.

This 12 months is particular as a result of the category of 2023 began their first 12 months of med college in the course of the COVID pandemic. It’s an important day for fourth-year medical college students. It’s Match Day 2023 and it’s an opportunity to let free.

“I’m a teddy bear with a cutie pie sweetheart and a rose,” mentioned Joseph Elengickal.

Adam Turry mentioned: “It’s truly a romper, and the zipper begins up right here and comes all the way in which down.”

That is the place 177 college students like Taylor Patterson will obtain the letter of a lifetime.

“I’m very nervous proper now. It’s nerve-wracking. My coronary heart is thrashing very quick,” he mentioned.

It decides the place their subsequent cease is for his or her profession, they usually needed to wait till midday to open it.

In the course of the celebration, Patterson’s dad Greg Patterson held on tight to a newspaper clipping from 30 years in the past.

“This was my Match Day. It’s even higher with him, and it’s candy success and an entire circle,” mentioned Greg. “It’s wonderful and lots of feelings.”

There have been loads of unknowns for this group.

Elengickal mentioned: “All our in-person courses ended up going digital.”

Of their first 12 months, COVID closed lecture rooms.

Turry mentioned: “It was a tricky adaptation, to be sincere. Med college is already a steep studying curve, so going by that in our first 12 months was powerful.”

They banded collectively to stay it out to get that letter with their identify on it.

Patterson mentioned: “It was tough firstly. Nonetheless going to lectures and learning with the entire stuff happening on this planet, nevertheless it exhibits the resiliency of the category and it is a very particular class.”

MCG tells us this was additionally the primary time medical college students within the Peach Scholar Program have been matched. These college students will do their residencies in rural and under-served components of the state.

Copyright 2023 WRDW/WAGT. All rights reserved.