Across the country, medical students participated in what's officially known as the 2025 Main Residency Match – to learn where they will practice for their residency assignments – and UNMC joined in the Match Day celebration.
A total of 126 senior medical students at UNMC discovered their assignments, most by opening an envelope after the appointed time to read a sheet of paper that spelled out their next steps in becoming doctors and health care professionals. With that, the joy, pride and tears overflowed at a special event for an important moment.
At left, Nam Nguyen pumps his fist after announcing his residency assignment at UNMC's Match Day celebration. At right, Danielle Tibbels smiles as she leaves the podium after announcing her residency match.
It was 11 a.m., and Danielle Tibbels looked super calm as she opened her Match Day envelope.
Tibbels was one of 126 senior medical students at UNMC who, along with graduating medical students across the country, learned about their residency assignments March 21 during an event at the Omaha Design Center.
Amid whoops, gasps and excited cries, the result for Tibbels was a match in internal medicine at UNMC.
On Match Day, 126 senior medical students at UNMC discovered their future residency assignments.
Tibbels said the Match Day event “means basically everything that I've been working for up until this point is about to happen.
“It feels like the dip on a roller coaster, like you're just about to start,’ she said. “But I'm glad to be sticking around familiar faces and good people.”
Trevor Daubert, an Omaha native, also learned he is going to be staying at UNMC, matching in anesthesiology.
“I’m amped,” he said. “UNMC is a phenomenal program. I'm really looking forward to my experience and education here.”
At left, medical students Austen Washington, Sineah Donaldson and Bria Foley pick up the envelopes that contain the announcement of their future residency assignments. At right, Currey Zalman opens his in a well-documented moment.
The 2025 Main Residency Match® – referred to as Match Day – is an annual rite of passage for medical students, a day when students across the country learn where they will train for the next three to seven years, depending on the medical area of their choice. Students are matched through a computer program to align their preferences for residency programs to fill the thousands of training positions available at U.S. teaching hospitals.
Forty-six percent of UNMC students are staying in Nebraska for their training, with 41% at UNMC. Fifty-three percent matched in primary care, which includes family medicine, internal medicine, internal medicine/pediatrics, medicine-preliminary, medicine-psychiatry, obstetrics and gynecology, and pediatrics.
Nationally, there were 43,237 residency positions.
UNMC medical student Hannah Manoj places a pin to map her residency assignment, and the map at right shows UNMC's placements at the med center and around the country.
“For those students who will be staying for residency training at UNMC, we are thrilled that we will be part of the next stage of their career. For those students leaving to train at other institutions, we wish them well knowing their time at UNMC has prepared them well for residency. Either way, wherever their career paths take them, they will always be part of UNMC.”
Bradley Britigan, MD, dean of the UNMC College of Medicine
UNMC College of Medicine Dean Bradley Britigan, MD
Wendy Grant, MD, associate dean of student affairs, said the medical profession’s Match Day was a unique event.
“The fact that everybody who's finished, everybody who's going to start residency in the entire country, finds out at the same time where they're going, it's a very surreal feeling,” Dr. Grant said.
“This is a unique aspect of becoming a physician and changing people's lives, and it is a rite of passage. In some ways, this day is almost bigger than graduation.”
The event was held in a new venue this year, the Omaha Design Center on Cuming Street in the NoDo district.
“Honestly, it’s all about seeing the students smiles and cheers as they find out where they're doing their residency,” said Cody Phillips, senior student affairs coordinator at the college. “This is why we do what we do – to see the students succeeding and reaching their goals.”
The Match Day moment can be overwhelming, recalling for medical students the journeys that have brought them to this point and the future now laid out ahead of them. UNMC medical student Katie Weaver met the emotion of the moment.
At left, Sineah Donaldson stands before a group of UNMC medical students highlighting their residency assignments on a poster card. At right (from left to right), medical students Anna Barent, Cade Cody, Lauren Weis, Macy Thonen, Max Devine and Brandon Chelewski show their assignments.
Grace Kelly, at left, and Kaitlyn Thompson celebrate their residency matches.