Visiting Medical Students Celebrate Wide Range of Residency Matches

California Health Sciences University College of Osteopathic Medicine (CHSU-COM) celebrates the 100% match rate on “Match Day” this year for its visiting fourth year medical students. In a national process that is highly competitive, all 17 visiting medical students from Kansas City University (KCU) and A.T. Still University (ATSU) matched to a wide variety of residencies.

During the annual “Match Day,” the medical students from KCU and ATSU simultaneously unveiled where their next step in education will continue as residents. Matching to a residency program launches their career path to learn and practice in a specialty program after they graduate.

Since beginning in 2019, this is the third year that 100% of the visiting medical students matched to a residency program through the Visiting Student Pilot Program at CHSU-COM. This pilot program developed a unique partnership between the visiting medical students, students at CHSU-COM, and the local medical community to offer clinical rotations during their third and fourth years and to meet the need for physicians in the Central Valley.

Loren Wines, fourth year student from KCU and Bakersfield native, matched to the Kern Medical Psychiatry Residency. Since high school and throughout clinical rotations, Wines said he always was interested in psychiatry because he wanted to change his patients’ lives not just at one moment in time, but for their entire lives.

“Throughout the Kern Valley there’s a disparity in healthcare access, but especially in psychiatry,” said Wines. “I can stay in my community, training and doing what I love through my residency where I can leave work every day and feel like I didn’t go to work.”

Raised in Oakdale, California, Sarah Courtney, fourth year student from KCU, developed a passion for emergency medicine as a scribe during her undergraduate education. She applied to medical school with a plan to practice emergency medicine and she matched to Albany Medical Center’s Emergency Medicine residency program in Albany, New York.

“Emergency medicine fueled my love for medicine, and I think I’ll get fantastic training at Albany Medical Center,” said Courtney.

John Wagner, fourth year medical student from ATSU Kirksville, matched to the Internal Medicine Residency Program at Eisenhower Army Medical Center in Fort Gordon, Augusta, Georgia. From a young age, he was inspired to pursue a career in healthcare noting that the television show “Scrubs” played an influence on his career choices. He initially was pursuing a path to become a physician’s assistant, working through the pre-PA courses in undergrad, but in his junior year he decided he wanted to become a physician instead. He is excited to begin his residency after graduation.

Dr. Anne VanGarsse, Associate Dean of Clinical Affairs, Community Engagement and Population Health, and Dr. Nohemi Barriga, Career Counselor and Residency Match Manager, coordinated the efforts to prepare this last cohort of visiting medical students for residency applications before the CHSU-COM matches its inaugural class in 2024.

“I’m excited that this cohort of visiting medical students matched to a good diversity of specialties, including in the Central Valley,” said Dr. VanGarsse. “I value this cohort for being generous in volunteering multiple times to work with our CHSU-COM third year students on clinical skills, residency advising panels, serving on a panel on how to approach level II, and to mentor our students.”

Reaching a new record, over 7,400 osteopathic medical students participated in “Match Day” nationwide, with 91.6% of them matching to a residency – a two percent increase from 2022.

Below is a sampling of where CHSU’s visiting students matched:

Visiting Student	Medical School	Residency Program	Residency Location	Specialty
Sarah Courtney	KCU	Albany Medical Center	Albany, NY	Emergency Medicine
Don Ha	KCU	Saint Agnes Medical Center	Fresno, CA	Emergency Medicine
John Lee	KCU	Riverside University Health System	Riverside, CA	Internal Medicine
Sindhu Rajan	ATSU	Abrazo Health Network	Phoenix, AZ	Family Medicine
John Wagner	ATSU Kirksville	Eisenhower Army Medical Center	Augusta, GA	Internal Medicine
Loren Wines	KCU	Kern Medical	Bakersfield, CA	Psychiatry
Brian Ying	KCU	Monmouth Medical Center	Long Branch, NJ	Obstetrics & Gynecology

Related Articles