• UCLA Health
  • myUCLAhealth
  • School of Medicine
U Magazine

U Magazine

U Magazine
  • Home
  • Current Issue
  • Centennial Campaign for UCLA Issue
  • Browse U Magazine
  • Letters to the Editor
  • Subscribe
  • Contact
  • UCLA Health
  • myUCLAhealth
  • School of Medicine

U Magazine

Browse U Magazine

  1. Home
  2. Browse U Magazine
Share this
The Cutting Edge

Flash Match

Match Day. Everyone who has been through medical school can remember the jitters of that day, when soon-to-be newly minted M.D.s learn where the next several years of their lives will be spent in residency training. Will it be the warm, sunny climes of Southern California? Or the frosty, snow-blanketed winters of Michigan or New York?

This year, four enterprising students at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA - Justin Hayase, M.D. '12, Mitra Nejad, M.D. '12, Alyssa Scott, M.D. '12, and Lissa Yu, M.D. '12 - decided to try something new to defuse the tension. With the blessing of the administration, they assembled a "flash mob" of 50 people to disrupt the Match Day ceremony on the morning of March 16 by spontaneously breaking into a dance choreographed to Chris Brown's pulsating "3x Yeah."

It was one of those moments made for YouTube, and in no time cameras and cell phones were recording the event. The loudest cheers were saved for the end, when Neil Parker, M.D., senior associate dean for student affairs, and Meredith Szumski, director of student affairs, stepped forward and wowed the crowd with their own enthusiastic moves.

"If that didn't get your heart pumping, you are either asleep or dead," A. Eugene Washington, M.D., M.Sc., dean of the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, proclaimed. He praised the graduating class, noting that its students were accomplished as well as artistic.

When the dance was over, culminating in an eight-clap and cheer, it was time to get on with the business of opening the white envelopes that would tell each student where he or she would be going next year. At 9 a.m., the students nervously filed outside to find the envelopes bearing their names. Pandemonium exploded on the patio of Covel Commons. Students erupted in triumphant screams and tears of joy, hugging their classmates and pumping their fists into the air. The majority of students received their first choices and smiled rapturously for photos, relieved to know the next step of their lives.

As for their own Match Day pairings, the UCLA flash-mob conspirators finished the morning with pleased smiles: Hayase was matched in internal medicine at UC San Diego; Nejad got ophthalmology at the Jules Stein Eye Institute at UCLA; Scott was paired in emergency medicine at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center and Yu will be studying obstetrics/gynecology at Yale University.

A flash mob led by four David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA students defuses the tension of Match Day.


Previous
Applying the Brakes to Parkinson’s
Next
Epilepsy Surgery: Not Treatment of Last Resort


YOU ARE VIEWING

Spring/Summer 2012

Spring/Summer 2012
E-Brochure
Printable PDF
IN THIS ISSUE
  • Healing Humankind
  • Two Lungs, a Liver and Life
  • Snipping Key Nerves May Help Life-Threatening Arrhythmias
  • New Drug Dramatically Extends Survival from Lethal Skin Cancer
  • Applying the Brakes to Parkinson’s
  • Flash Match
  • Epilepsy Surgery: Not Treatment of Last Resort
  • Reopening Blocked Brain Arteries
  • Parents Have Role in Helping
  • A New Device to Safely
  • Carol M.Mangione M.D., M.S.P.H.
  • Sleepless in L.A.
  • Our Sleep, Our Health
  • "They Just Want to Feel Normal”
  • Foreign Aid
  • Marathon Medics
  • Awards/Honors
  • Calendar
  • In His Own Words
  • MAA Board of Directors Meet
  • Postcard from Malawi
  • Alumni Speakers
  • Events
  • Quilt of Valor
  • Colorful Characters
  • Cameron’s At It Again
  • Gifts
  • Unraveling a Twist
Like Us on Facebook Follow Us on Twitter Subscribe to Our Videos on YouTube Follow us on Instagram Connect with Us on LinkedIn Follow us on Pinterest
UCLA Health hospitals ranked best hospitals by U.S. News & World Report
  • UCLA Health
  • Find a Doctor
  • School of Medicine
  • School of Nursing
  • UCLA Campus
  • Directory
  • Newsroom
  • Subscribe
  • Patient Stories
  • Giving
  • Careers
  • Volunteer
  • International Services
  • Privacy Practices
  • Nondiscrimination
  • Billing
  • Health Plans
  • Emergency
  • Report Broken Links
  • Terms of Use
  • 1-310-825-2631
  • Maps & Directions
  • Contact Us
  • Your Feedback
  • Report Misconduct
  • Get Social
  • Sitemap
Like Us on Facebook Follow Us on Twitter Subscribe to Our Videos on YouTube Follow us on Instagram Connect with Us on LinkedIn Follow us on Pinterest

Sign in to myUCLAhealth