Soon-to-graduate students of Weill Cornell Medicine - Qatar (WCM-Q) celebrated gaining places on residency programmes at some of world’s leading healthcare institutions on another highly successful Match Day for the college.
Match Day is a key turning point in the career of every medical student as they discover where they will continue their training after they have completed their MD degree and graduated.
This year, final-year WCM-Q students met for a ceremony to hear members of their class had gained places on elite programmes at renowned institutions in Qatar and the US, including Hamad Medical Corporation, NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Centre, Case Western/ University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Centre, Virginia Commonwealth University Health System, UC Davis Medical Centre, and Johns Hopkins Hospital, among others. The students are due to graduate in May and will join their residency programmes in the fall.
WCM-Q achieved a 93% match rate for students who applied to US residency programmes, a level which far exceeds the average 59% match rate for international medical graduates, demonstrating the college’s status as one of the world’s leading destinations for international medical education. Five WCM-Q students matched to Weill Cornell Medicine-affiliated NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital campuses.
Deema al-Abdullah, who came through WCM-Q’s one-year Foundation Programme before joining the college’s Six-Year Medical Programme, matched with the orthopaedic surgery residency programme at Hamad Medical Corporation.
She said: “Being able to go to WCM-Q while remaining in my home country was a huge opportunity for me. It has been tough but with hard work anything is possible.”
The medical specialities the soon-to-be doctors of the Class of 2025 will be pursuing once they receive their MD degrees are anaesthesiology, child neurology, dermatology, diagnostic radiology, emergency medicine, family medicine (osteopathic), general surgery, internal medicine, neurology, obstetrics/gynaecology, orthopaedic surgery, paediatrics, psychiatry, and preventive and community medicine. Mohammad Yaghmour matched with the general surgery residency programme at Weill Cornell Medicine/NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital.
He said: “Studying at WCM-Q has really been the best of both worlds. You get to access the prestigious education system of the US while being able to stay around your own family, which is everything that I could have asked for.”
Match Day is a highly competitive process, with many thousands of students in the US and all over the world vying for a limited number places through a programme administered by the National Resident Matching Programme (NRMP) in Washington, DC. This year was the largest match in the NRMP’s 73-year history, with a record 52,498 registered applicants competing for 43,237 available positions.
Dean of WCM-Q Dr Javaid Sheikh said: “All of us at WCM-Q are immensely proud of the incredibly high standards reached by our graduating class in their residency matches. They have shown exemplary commitment to the study of medicine and I have no doubt that they will go on to thrive in their new roles.”
