WCMC-Q students celebrate record residency program match rate
March, 2014
100 per cent of the students who applied for a U.S residency were accepted, the best result in WCMC-Q's history.
There were scenes of jubilation at WCMC-Q as every student who sought a U.S. residency program secured a place at a hospital to continue their training after graduation.
The annual Match Day event is a fiercely competitive affair, with more than 40,000 graduating medical students around the world vying for approximately 25,000 residency positions.
The WCMC-Q students revealed the news of their successful matches in front of friends, family and faculty at an event held at the college on March 21. Students matched at internationally renowned medical institutions in the United States including Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Yale-New Haven Hospital, the University of Rochester Medical Center in New York and New York-Presbyterian Hospital.
Of the 34 students of the Class of 2014, 25 sought and secured matches on residency programs in the United States. Two students were accepted to residency programs at Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC) and seven are pursuing a variety of alternative activities next year.
Dr. Javaid Sheikh, dean of WCMC-Q, paid tribute to the Class of 2014.
He said: "Achieving a match rate of 100 percent is a great honor for our college, an honor that has been made possible by the truly excellent levels of commitment, hard work and talent shown by our students during their time here, and by our faculty and staff who have supported them every step of the way.
"We now bid a fond farewell to our students as they embark on a new chapter in their careers by joining residency programs at elite-level institutions, both here in Qatar and overseas. We wish each and every one of them the very best of luck.
“We have faith that they will be great ambassadors for WCMC-Q, and that they will use the knowledge and skills they have learned here to improve the health and wellbeing of the patients they serve, wherever they are in the world.”
Match Day marks the culmination of four years of medical training for WCMC-Q’s students, who will graduate in May. This year was the first time in the history of WCMC-Q that every single graduating student who applied has been granted a U.S. residency place - an extremely rare and coveted achievement for any medical college.
Qatari graduate Abdulwahed Zainel secured a pediatric residency at HMC.
He said: “I’m so happy and excited that I’m going to HMC, there are so many things to look forward to. I’m sure there will be lots of hard work but I will have the chance to work with children to help them overcome their health problems, which is what I really want to do.
“I learned science in Arabic at high school so it was a big transition for me to study medicine in English, but everyone at WCMC-Q gave me great support every step of the way and I’m very grateful for that.”
Maen Abou Ziki matched at Yale-New Haven Hospital in Connecticut, where he will join an internal medicine residency program.
He said: “This is the moment we have all been waiting for and working towards for a very long time now. I’m very proud of all of my classmates and I’m very happy that I have been accepted to a residency program at an institution with such an excellent academic reputation. I have had an amazing journey here at WCMC-Q.”
Nour Barakat will pursue an ophthalmology residency program at Hamad Medical Corporation.
She said: “I’m so happy because it has been my dream to be an ophthalmologist for so many years. I feel very privileged to have studied with so many amazing, hard working people and so proud that our Class of 2014 achieved this incredible 100 percent match rate.”
