UNE medical school Match Day 2026 places 166 students in residencies

Maine’s only medical school enjoyed what might have been the most festive Match Day in the nearly 50 years since the University of New England’s College of Osteopathic Medicine was founded, with 166 budding doctors in the Class of 2026 heading to residencies across the country, including 13 in Maine.

The 2026 Match Day also took place in the Arthur P. Girard Innovation Hall the first year that the hall was joined to the University's new state-of-the art medical education facility, the Harold and Bibby Alfond Center for Health Sciences, a modern, three-story, sustainably designed facility that opened last June.

Of the 166 students matched on Friday, 69 were matched in New England. In addition, UNE will send 84 graduating medical students to residencies in primary care and 28 to work in emergency medicine.

At a time when a critical workforce shortage in medicine is hampering care at medical centers across the country, including rural hospitals in Maine, the high match rate was cause for celebration on the Portland Campus for the Health Sciences, and medical students erupted with cheers.

Milleah Sawtelle got good news: She will do her residency at MaineHealth Maine Medical Center in Portland, with a rotation in rural Maine at MaineHealth Pen Bay Hospital in Rockland. 

Since Sawtelle and her husband, Dylan Clifford, didn’t want to sell their home, take their daughter, Cecelia, out of her day care, and leave Maine, Friday’s news was joyful. They can continue living close to Clifford’s family in Greater Portland, as they hoped.

“We're really excited about the family aspect and that we're going to have the support nearby,” Sawtelle said. “I like the program (at Maine Med). I did a summer internship there, and I really loved the people. So, I was hoping they felt the same way. And they did.

“I am excited to be able to go up to the Pen Bay area to be able to support and give some more services that they don't necessarily have a plethora of up there,” Sawtelle said.

UNE President James Herbert acknowledged the hard journey and unknown the medical students faced through their four years at UNE — and the talent they’ve exhibited. 

“I get to see throughout your time here the achievements and things you do — it’s really nothing short of amazing. You have chosen one of the most noble callings to pursue … and it’s needed, and our world needs more physicians, especially the kinds of physicians that are trained right here in Maine,” Herbert said.

Jane Carreiro, D.O. ’88, vice president for Health Affairs and dean of the College of Osteopathic Medicine, offered the students just one bit of advice: “You have an idea of what you want to be in that envelope. It might be something different, but that’s where life is sending you because that’s where you're needed ... so, open those envelopes with an open heart.”

“The Bibby,” as medical students affectionately call UNE’s new medical education building, is expected to help UNE rise to the challenges of a nationally strained medical system. Last June, the state-of-the-art facility brought all of UNE’s health care profession students to one campus to learn in an interprofessional environment, the only one of its kind in New England.

The 21% increase in enrollment that resulted from the new medical facility means 200 medical students will now be enrolled each year (with the first class of 200 currently completing their first year of medical school), eventually adding 35 more physicians to the workforce annually to help to stem the shortage of physicians in Maine.

The College of Osteopathic Medicine consistently is ranked among the country’s top medical schools and considered a leader in primary care, rural medicine, and geriatric health care. And UNE medical students match to residencies at rates well above national averages. Last year, 98% of students, or 167, matched to residencies — a higher rate then the M.D. match rate in 2025, which was 94%. Of those, 50% matched to residencies in primary care.