‘I’m going home’; Boonshoft students learn residency placements at Match Day ceremony

Medical students at Wright State University’s Boonshoft School of Medicine learned what their future holds during the annual Match Day ceremony on Friday at the Dayton Masonic Center.

During the longstanding tradition at medical schools nationwide, students gathered together to open envelopes revealing where they will be learning to be doctors in their specialty for the next three to five years.

“I’m going home,” said E.J. Torralba, who was excited to learn that he was placed with UCLA for his residency. Torralba, whose specialty is interventional radiology.

“It was my first choice,” Torralba said. “Definitely a lot of hard work.”

Nationally, there were approximately 50,000 people, including medical students and international doctors coming to the U.S., applying for residency programs.

Most of the medical students graduating from Boonshoft will be spread across the U.S.

For the others, about 45% of them will be staying in Ohio with 20% staying in the Dayton region, said Dr. Gregory Toussaint, interim dean of the Boonshoft School of Medicine.

Those staying in Dayton include Ehab Hassouna, who will remain close to home after matching with Wright State University.

“I’m super happy,” said Hassouna, whose specialty is neurology. “I know the program. I know all the residents and the attending, so I’m glad I get to go to a place I’m comfortable with, and more importantly, I can stay with my wife and my family.”

Of Boonshoft’s graduates, 14% will be specializing in internal medicine, 11.5% in family medicine, 10% in psychiatry, 9% in emergency medicine, 7% in obstetrics and gynecology and 7% in neurology. The remaining include a number of other types of specialties like radiology, ophthalmology and more.

“Six years ago, there was a single person who went into neurology, and now it’s 7% of the class,” Toussaint said.

The graduating class also boasts a medical student whose specialty is in neurological surgery, Alex Gilman, whose was the fourth person at Boonshoft in the last decade to have matched with that specialty.

“Thank you, class of 2024, for showing us what determination, resilience and grit can accomplish,” Toussaint said.

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