Las Vegas medical students ‘matched’ with residency programs

UPDATE: A previous version of this article contained imprecise information. These figures have been corrected.

LAS VEGAS (KLAS) — 150 graduating medical students at Touro University Nevada College of Osteopathic Medicine learned their match on Friday morning during the nationwide Match Day.

Match Day is when student doctors learn where they will be going to complete their residency programs and transition to becoming physicians. It happens simultaneously across the country, and all student doctors share in the annual tradition.

Touro University Nevada College of Osteopathic Medicine held its Match Day event at Horseshoe Casino at 9 a.m. on Friday. The school has a 99.4 percent match and placement rate, and 34 percent of its students will stay in Nevada to help with the doctor shortage.

Pranati Shah is a fourth-year medical student from California who came to school in the Las Vegas valley. She says she is excited to begin this part of her journey of becoming a doctor of internal medicine.

“There is all sorts of excitement and nervousness and jitteriness. I think really there is a sense of satisfaction that four years have gone by amazingly and flown by. Wherever I end up, I know I will be the strongest physician and resident that I will be able to be,” she explained. Shah received her top choice.

Residencies last from three to seven years before these student doctors become fully practicing doctors.

Touro University Nevada School of Medicine & Health Sciences is Nevada’s largest school of medicine and physician assistant studies. It is a private, non-profit, Jewish-sponsored institution that was established in 2004 to help address the critical needs in health care throughout the state.

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