Finding The Right Match

Kia Ousley, a fourth-year medical student at Texas A&M College of Medicine, has wanted to be a physician ever since she was in eighth grade. Even at that early age, she knew what type of doctor she wanted to be – a family doctor, because that is the type of doctor she saw in her hometown of Goliad, Texas.

Ousley moved one step closer to her dream March 20 when she found out she has been accepted to a family medicine residency program at UT-Tyler. After completing this three-year residency, Ousley will be able to return to Goliad – or another small town like it – and practice medicine on her own.

Ousley was among 191 fourth-year medical students from the Texas A&M College of Medicine who recently found out where they will be doing their residencies. The occasion was “Match Day” – an annual ritual where all graduating medical students in the United States learn where they have been “matched” to do their graduate medical education, also known as residencies. Since there are more medical students graduating nationally than there are residency slots, some students applied to as many as 100 different programs in order to secure a residency in the specialty of their choice.

For more on this story, see Vital Record.