Members of the Chicago Medical School (CMS) Class of 2019 gathered for the annual Match Day rite of passage on March 15, joining thousands of fellow fourth-year medical students around the United States in learning where they will complete their residency training in their chosen specialties.

CMS continues its strong record of match success with a 98 percent rate of placement, exceeding the 2019 national match rate of 94.9 percent. Students matched to top residency programs around the nation at hospitals and medical centers including: Johns Hopkins, Mayo, Baylor, Yale-New Haven, Harvard-MGH, Brown-RIH, Stanford, Washington, UCSF, USC, UCLA, Michigan, Ohio State, Icahn-Mount Sinai, as well as across Chicagoland: Stroger Cook County Northwestern University, U Chicago, UIC, Loyola, Advocate/Aurora, and many more, including a Canadian match at the University of Toronto.

“This is a spectacular class and an extraordinary, spectacular match,” CMS Dean James Record, MD, JD, FACP, told the crowd of students, family, friends and RFU faculty and staff who gathered in the Rothstein Warden Centennial Learning Center for the nationally synchronized event. “It speaks to the excellence of our students and the quality of the programs we offer.”

Dr. Record invoked the 1969 Earth-orbiting Apollo 9 space mission in urging students to take time during their busy days pursuing their passion as resident physicians to “recognize the joy” in their work. He told the story of astronaut Rusty Schweickart who, after a space walk while waiting to re-enter the space module — hurtling at 18,000 miles per hour across space in a windless, soundless universe — looked at the earth and “entered the sublime.”

“He asked, ‘What have I done in my life to experience this?’" Dr. Record said. “As residents, remember to take the time to pull back that scope, to look at your world and to see it for the beauty that it is. Couple your passion with that joy.”

The CMS Class of 2019 graduates on May 31 during Rosalind Franklin University’s 105th Commencement Celebration, to be held in downtown Chicago.