The MU School of Medicine held its annual Match Day event Friday, which is part of the National Residency Matching Program. Graduating seniors receive their residency invitation letters all at once at the event.
Rachel Brown, School of Medicine and Associate Dean for Student Program at MU said some students during their final year go outside of Missouri for additional clinical experience.
“Most of our students have undergraduate degrees, some of them have graduate degrees,” Brown said. And, when they come to medical school for four years they spend two years mostly in the classroom in our innovative patient based learning curriculum and then they spend two years mostly in the clinical environment in Columbia and in other cities across Missouri.”
Brown said in the past 40 percent of MU students received an acceptance into a Missouri residency program, but this year that number increased to 45 percent.
Among the crowd of excited students and their proud parents was Ontario Lacey.
Lacey, who is older than some of his classmates, has plans for his medical career. He has been accepted into the internal medicine program at the Naval Medical Center San Diego.
“I’m older, I’m not a traditional student. After retirement, I will continue my practice in the critical care medicine,” Lacey said.
He said his experience at MU was challenging, it was also positive. Lacey will leave for his program in December.