Soon-to-be Penn MD grads map future plans near and far

For longtime faculty and staff at Penn Medicine, Match Day never gets old. 

Staff spend the morning decorating the Atrium in the Jordan Medical Education Center with balloons and prepping photo booth props, mounting a map of the United States and a set of pushpins, and pouring small plastic cups of champagne and nonalcoholic bubbly. By 11:15 a.m., the bright and airy space—normally a quiet commons where Perelman School of Medicine students catch up over coffee, or work away on laptops—has become full, of both people and chatter. A nervous excitement builds up, only intensifying around 11:50 when the fourth-year students scurry to tables at the front of the room, where they pick up sealed white envelopes that hold the answer to their all-consuming question: Where am I going for residency? 

It's a scene that plays out every year with new students and families, and new trends in most popular specialties and destinations. And yet it’s always marked by giddiness and hope, both by the soon-to-be-doctors and the faculty who guide them and cheer them on. “I am elated,” said Senior Vice Dean for Medical Education Suzanne Rose, MD, MSEd, “knowing the discoveries, opportunities, miracles, and magic” that lie ahead for these students in their medical careers. 

And so it was that on Friday, March 21^st, Perelman School of Medicine students impatiently waited until exactly 12 p.m. to tear open the envelopes. They were greeted by the deans including Prithvi Sankar, MD, assistant dean for Student Affairs and Residency Planning, who had met with almost all of the students with invaluable guidance and advice. They counted down from 10 with DaCarla Albright, MD, associate dean for Student Affairs and Wellness. And then -they screamed, they jumped up and down, they hugged, and someone even fired a confetti cannon, showering a portion of the crowd with colorful scraps of paper. 

Bringing Penn training to small-town patients 

Among the happy throng was Chip Chambers, who entered medical school in the summer of 2020—amid the early throes of the COVID-19 pandemic. Hailing from rural Watkinsville, GA, he went from being homeschooled to attending the University of Georgia to applying to Penn, for an MD/MBA (which included two years at The Wharton School). On Match Day, with his beaming parents at his side, he opened the envelope to find he’d be pursuing a Family Medicine residency at his top choice—Self Regional Healthcare in Greenwood, SC, population just over 20,000. 

While many of his classmates are headed to large academic medical centers to continue their training, Chambers very deliberately chose this destination, which focuses only on family medicine and is in a small city about an hour and a half from where he grew up. “I feel like I can help the most people by moving to an area with an inadequate supply of physicians, and trying to treat each patient as a whole person,” he said.  

Chambers came to Penn with two goals: to concentrate in primary care, and to better understand the health care system as a whole, including different payment models (hence the MBA). He was attracted by the Perelman School of Medicine’s burgeoning primary care pathway and strong clinical foundation, including its ultrasound curriculum. Chambers did a sub-internship at the Veterans Administration and came away from this experience, and the rest of his education, with insight into “how poorly we manage chronic disease due to structural problems in our health care system.”  

He is choosing a career in family medicine so he can work on preventing disease when possible, and taking into account each patient’s whole self and environment: “I’m looking forward to that moment I walk into a patient’s room, look them in the eye, and say, ‘How can I help?’” 

A culture of mentoring  

Although Chambers’ training will take him far from Philly, many of his classmates will be staying put. One is Dani Brown, who matched at Penn for Internal Medicine, as did her partner David Rekhtman in Surgery. (The pair, who entered the couples match, met on their very first day of medical school, and in fact Match Day was the first time their families met each other—talk about a celebration!) Brown and Rekhtman are in good company: 29 percent of the 144 Perelman School of Medicine students who matched will continue their training at Penn or Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.  

One benefit to staying local is that Brown will be able to keep an eye on some of the projects that she spearheaded at PSOM. Penn Health X is a student club focused on business, entrepreneurship, and innovation in healthcare. Among its initiatives is a Social Determinants of Health Accelerator with which Brown interned as a first-year medical student and went on to co-lead in her second year; she advanced through the group and handed over the reins as its VP of Strategy. Brown also developed Chalktalk, a semester-long program that enlists faculty mentors to give fourth-year medical students formal instruction on how to effectively teach clinical information. The program culminates in an event where fourth-years present their Chalk Talks to second-years. “I want to make sure that the things I’ve helped create can be sustainable” for future generations of Penn medical students, said Brown. 

This desire is in keeping with the support she’s received in her time at Penn, especially through working in the lab of Rachel Kelz, MD, MBA, MS, the William Maul Measey Professor in Surgery and executive vice chair for research in the department of Surgery. “Dr. Kelz created a culture where every member of the lab mentors each other,” said Brown. “It’s given me a toolkit to conduct academic research.” Brown, who spent a few years in Washington, DC working in health policy before medical school, added that she wants to be a practicing clinician, “but I also want to transform how health care is delivered, particularly for those who don’t have access.” 

An improbable journey for a global health impact 

That’s a goal shared by one of her classmates who will also be remaining at Penn for residency. Sydney Chambule described his journey to an MD as “improbable.” A native of Mozambique, he obtained scholarships to study in the United States and graduated from a pre-med program at a small college in western Pennsylvania. Chambule then landed a research job at Harvard for a few years and wound up not only earning admission to the Perelman School of Medicine but also getting a full scholarship, the Twenty-First Century Scholars Award.  

With these gifts, his plan is to bring advances that U.S. patients take for granted back home to Mozambique. Where Chambule is from, cervical cancer—a largely preventable illness in much of the world—is the leading cause of cancer deaths in women. When his father was found to have metastatic prostate cancer, there was only one radiation machine in Mozambique, but it was broken for months, and the only place to get the necessary (and expensive) medicine to treat this late-stage cancer was in South Africa. “I realized that there really are significant barriers to care there that don’t exist everywhere,” said Chambule, whose father ended up passing away from the condition. “It was hard for me to see the limitations of my country’s health care system and how that impacted my father’s care.” As a result, Chambule switched his interest from neurosurgery to urology, with a plan to go back to Mozambique to practice. “I want to have a global health impact,” he said. 

News of Chambule’s match itself beamed around the globe to home. His family wasn’t able to be there in person, but Chambule FaceTimed the big moment with his mother back in Mozambique, and it was hard to tell whose shouts of joy were louder. “Penn is my first choice,” he smiled. “I think it has exactly what I’m looking for.” 

Through the eyes of faculty 

Wherever their Match destination, the chance to improve the care of patients on both local and large-scale levels awaits Chambule and his classmates. Jonathan Epstein, MD, dean of the Perelman School of Medicine and Executive Vice President of the University of Pennsylvania for the Health System, told the crowd he was “actually incredibly jealous” of them. Epstein recounted recent news coverage of David Fajgenbaum, MD, MBA, MSc, associate professor of Translational Medicine and Genetics, who as a medical student at Penn nearly died from Castleman’s disease before discovering that a sirolimus, a drug already approved for other conditions, was the key to putting his condition into remission. Now he’s leading an effort to use artificial intelligence to search existing drugs for potential uses in other life-threatening conditions. “I relate this story because of how exciting this time is for medicine, and the tools you will have,” said Epstein to the students about to learn where they matched.  

Taking in all the speeches and cheers, the pomp and celebrations, was Rose. After shepherding more than 4,000 students through Match Day over her past 28 years serving as dean at multiple institutions, she’s stepping back from her leadership role. “I believe in turnover and fresh ideas,” she said, noting that the medical school will soon be embarking on reshaping its curriculum, a process that could take a decade to fully come to fruition. She’ll miss overseeing happy transitions like Match Day the most: “It has been a privilege and honor of a lifetime for me.”