March 23, 2015

Held hot on the heels of Match Day, the School of Medicine Alumni Association’s Match Day Reception offers a chance for the recently-matched students to recognize those who have helped them on their way.

Close to 150 learners, family and invited mentors gathered in the atrium of the Center for Health & Healing the day after Match Day to acknowledge the formal and the informal, the social and the professional partnerships that bind together the learners’ classroom, clinical and lab experiences during their time in medical school.

"I've invited three advisors to the event,” said Karen Bieraugel, MS4 who went through the couples match with her partner, James Anstey, MS4. “They've each helped me in separate ways: either through direct teaching on the medicine wards, guiding me along the way through publishing a case report, discussing whatever was on my mind over a cup of coffee, or diligently talking through residency applications and my rankings of programs. Each has touched and guided my path in different ways and I'm so thankful for each of their support."

"I love being involved with the medical curriculum and the students," said John Stull, M.D., MPH, assistant professor and residency program director for public health and preventive medicine, who was invited to the event as a mentor by Bieraugel and others. "It is a substantial honor to walk with them a little ways in their journey through medical school and share the tears and laughter of their accomplishments on the way. If in the process I can be named 'mentor' I'm proud of that, but for me it’s icing on an already rich and rewarding cake."

Above right: Karen Bieraugel and James Anstey celebrate matching to residencies at University of California San Francisco, their first choice in the National Residency Matching Program.