March 21, 2025

‘We did it:’ School of Medicine’s Warrior M.D. Class of 2025 celebrate the next step in their lives at Match Day

Members of the Warrior M.D. Class of 2025 make memories at Match Day.

“I’m shaking.”

Sara Ma had just learned she secured a residency in Plastic Surgery at St. Louis University in Missouri, where she hopes to fulfill her passion for helping people who need reconstructive surgery due to cancer, trauma and other medical hardships.

Sara Ma found out March 21 that she matched with the Plastic Surgery Residency Program at St. Louis University in Missouri.

“I love surgery, and how hands-on surgery is. Plastics was the one specialty that was really optimistic,” she said. “You can give (a patient) a normal piece of themself back. I love the reconstructive aspect of it.”

Ma was among the WSU School of Medicine’s senior medical students and their families and friends, along with faculty and staff, who gathered inside the ballroom of the MGM Grand Detroit Hotel the morning of March 21 to celebrate their accomplishments in a Match Day program that included award announcements, remarks from faculty and student leadership, and of course, the countdown clock to noon.

Only then were the students allowed to open the envelopes containing a single sheet of white tri-folded paper containing the what and where of their post-graduation residency assignment.

“This one of those rare moments in life when the possibilities of our lives are endless,” said Class of 2025 President Aarti Patel. “We did it.”

Class of 2025 President Aarti Patel reacts to matching with an Obstetrics and Gynecology residency program in Chicago.

At 99.4%, the match rate for the School of Medicine students who participated in this year’s match was nearly 6% higher than the national average of 93.5%.

The Match Day event in Detroit is one of hundreds nationwide that follow the protocol of the National Resident Matching Program, a private non-profit corporation established in 1952 to provide a uniform date of appointment to graduate medical education positions in the United States.

For medical students, Match Day marks the beginning of the end – the start of the transition from four years of undergraduate medical studies to the next three to seven years of graduate medical education, depending on their chosen medical specialty.

“This is one of the most exhilarating and nerve-wracking days of your lives,” said Medical School Alumni Association President Piero Simone, M.D. ’95.

From mid-January through late February, applicants and program directors rank each other in order of preference and submit preference lists to NRMP, which processes them using a computerized mathematical algorithm to match applicants with residency programs nationwide.

This year, 20,864 U.S. senior applicants, both allopathic and osteopathic students, participated in the Match. Including international applications, 47,208 total applicants registered in the 2025 Main Residency Match to secure one of 43,237 residency positions. Notably, while the number of positions filled by U.S. senior medical students has decreased since 2017 from 60% then to 48.5% in 2025, Wayne State seniors have maintained a consistent Match rate. In fact, the nine-year Match rate for the WSU School of Medicine has remained at or above 97%.

“It is a tough journey to join any medical school, but at Wayne State, there’s a little more needed,” said WSU School of Medicine Dean Wael Sakr, M.D. “You really are a source of pride to all of us. These are Wayne-trained medical students. They will be fabulous residents.”

Denise Bilbao, at left, celebrates her residency placement with fiance Jay Blackwell.

Slightly more than 50.2% of the Class of 2025 will remain in Michigan, up nearly 2% from 2024, matching with 13 Michigan-based health systems and/or centers. That includes 51 students heading to Henry Ford Health (which now includes Ascension sites), 28 to the Detroit Medical Center, 27 to Corewell Health, 20 to University of Michigan Health System and 10 to Trinity Health.

Overall, 31.1% of students are entering primary care specialties such as Family Medicine, Internal Medicine and Pediatrics. The top three specialties include 57 students entering Internal Medicine, 25 entering Anesthesiology and 24 entering General Surgery, with a total of 23 medical specialties represented by the Match this year.

Denise Bilbao is one of the medical students who placed in an Internal Medicine residency at Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, a site her father, an Internal Medicine physician, sends patients in need of the most advanced care.

“I’m a little overwhelmed and really excited for the opportunities that program will give me,” she said.

Students leaving Michigan after graduation will head to California, Ohio, Illinois, New York and 26 other states.

After spending the last eight years at Wayne State earning his undergraduate and pursuing his medical degree, Dheeraj Kagithala is moving to Kansas, where he will begin a Neurosurgery residency this summer at the University of Kansas.

“I’m very excited. It is kind of a new change of pace,” he said.

In addition to students who participated in the Main Residency Match revealed March 21, students from the School of Medicine also matched in Urology and Ophthalmology programs in February, and Military programs in December 2024. The Class of 2025 Commencement and Hooding Ceremony will take place at the Fox Theatre Detroit on May 8.

To support the School of Medicine in hosting milestone student events like Match Day, consider making a gift to the Medical Alumni Annual Fund or contacting the School of Medicine Development and Alumni Affairs Office at 313-577-5187 or medicalalumniaffairs@wayne.edu for more information.