Adrianne Wurzl '19

Opening the red envelope, I initially felt super nervous. I actually took a second to watch my peers open theirs first and then I got around to opening mine about 30 seconds later. It was so surreal to know what I’d been waiting to find out was written on a piece of paper in an envelope! When I finally read it, I was immediately relieved and so excited! It felt like the culmination of so many hours of classes, so many clinical patients, so many tears, laughs, ups, and downs. At this point, I already knew I had matched, so I was mostly relieved even before coming in, but to find out I had matched to my number one program was surreal! I think I was mostly in a happy state of shock about my placement that I felt more excitement about finding out where my friends and girlfriend had gotten residency.

Match day was such a mixed bag of emotions for me, though overwhelmingly positive. I was really excited to see my friends and classmates I had not seen in 2 years and I think I was trying to focus more on that than the red envelope I’d open in an hour. Seeing my friends was an absolute blast. We were all really nervous but it was so good to share that feeling of nervousness/excitement with everyone and also to do a little bit of catching up to distract ourselves from the countdown to envelope time. Of course, once we’d all opened our envelopes, it was inexplicably amazing to be able to celebrate, happy cry, and toast with everyone. It was a good reminder that we’d all worked together and been through all of this together to get to this point, no matter where third- and fourth-year had taken each of us.

The afternoon of Match Day I received a phone call from [Baystate Medical Center for Emergency Medicine] welcoming me — it was reaffirming to the family vibe I felt when I went to visit. I’m also really excited about the potential to learn. Finally knowing where I am going to residency made everything seem real, and now I am just excited to go and learn a lot and be the best EM physician I can be.