Posted March 27, 2017
Med students learn residency placements on Match Day
The senior medical students from Temple's Lewis Katz School of Medicine were among a record-breaking 43,000+ applicants for residency programs this year.
Photography By:
Ryan S. Brandenberg
Chris Kyper and Becky Lacayo are among more than 200 senior medical students at the Lewis Katz School of Medicine who applied this year to be matched to residency programs.
For Becky Lacayo and Chris Kyper, who met their matches in each other their first year of medical school at Temple, Match Day—when graduating med students across the United States learn where they’ll go for their residencies—was particularly nerve-wracking.
“We couples-matched, so we have 191 combinations,” said Kyper as he and Lacayo waited to open the envelopes with their residency matches. The couple, who met in their first year when they were assigned to be anatomy partners and have since become engaged, said there was still a chance they could “match” a distance away from each other.
Becky Lacayo and Chris Kyper received the award for “cutest couple” on Match Day at Temple’s Lewis Katz School of Medicine.
Kyper and Lacayo are among more than 200 seniors headed to residencies this year at Temple’s Lewis Katz School of Medicine, and were among more than 43,000 applicants—a record number—across the country, according to the National Resident Matching Program. For Match Day, which fell on St. Patrick’s Day this year, Temple’s doctors in training, their families, and medical school faculty members packed the atrium in the Medical Education and Research Building for the countdown to noon, when the students could open their envelopes.
Lewis Katz School of Medicine Dean Larry Kaiser and Temple University Provost JoAnne A. Epps celebrated with medical school seniors on Match Day.
Kyper, a native of Lebanon, Pennsylvania who plans to specialize in neurology, and Lacayo, of Miami, who will go into emergency medicine, split the difference between their hometowns, listing institutions in both Philadelphia and Florida among their top choices.
“We’ll be happy wherever we go, as long a we stay together,” Kyper said.
Cheers erupted as the students tore open their envelopes.
Students Cody Nathan and John St. Angelo show their Match letters.
The top specialties Temple students matched into were internal medicine (46 students), emergency medicine (23 students), pediatrics (15 students), medicine-preliminary (19 students) and radiology-diagnostic (11 students). The top institutions they matched with were Temple University Hospital, Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, UCLA Medical Center, and St. Luke’s University Health Network. Five students are headed to Columbia and Cornell medical centers in New York, and four to Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore.
Pamela Boodram, from Brooklyn, New York, plans to specialize in internal medicine.
Kyper and Lacayo got their wish to stay together. Both matched in Jacksonville, Florida: Kyper to the Mayo Clinic and Lacayo to University of Florida Health Jacksonville.
Kyper plans to specialize in neurology; Lacayo in emergency medicine.
“I’m very proud of him. That’s what they wanted—it’s great,” Kyper’s mother, Patricia Kyper, said as the couple’s families celebrated the news together.
Lacayo’s mom, Carolina Lacayo, was thrilled to hear her daughter would be moving back to Florida after four years of medical school in Philadelphia.
“I’m so happy for her, and for me also,” Carolina Lacayo said. “I’m so proud of them.”
