What started out as a long and anxious wait for 31 nervous
Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar 2013 graduands ended in excitement and
joy when the Match Day results announced from the US were finally released on
Friday.
The students were all gathered in the main lecture hall at the
Education City campus in the presence of family, friends and academic advisers where
they learned where they would be doing their residency training for the next
three to seven years of their medical careers.
Match Day is an intensely competitive experience that can
shape budding medical careers or shatter high hopes for many. It is also the
culmination of a four-year journey for graduating medical students, one of the
final hurdles before graduation but equally important in their emerging careers
in medicine.
More than 40,000 graduating medical students around the
world competed for approximately 25,000 residency positions in the largest
match in the National Resident Matching Program's history. More than half of
U.S. seniors matched to their first choice and graduating students from WCMC-Q
showed similar results.
Eight WCMC-Q graduates will be going to the internationally
respected New York Presbyterian Hospital and others are heading off to equally
impressive destinations.
WCMC-Q Dean, Dr. Javaid Sheikh congratulated all the
students and wished them well for the rest of their careers. “This is a
fantastic achievement by our students. These impressive results are a wonderful
tribute to their hard work and effort as well as a clear demonstration of the
quality of education they have received at WCMC-Q. Our faculty and staff
are very proud of each and every one of them," Dean Sheikh
said.
At 20 years of age, Iqbal El-Assaad was the youngest student
ever to complete the medical degree at WCMC-Q. She entered medical school at
just 14 and was awarded a scholarship by Her Highness Sheikha Mozah bint Nasser.
Now she is contemplating a career in pediatrics. Iqbal will be going to the
Cleveland Clinic for Pediatrics. She is also thinking about doing a pediatric
cardiology fellowship some time in the future.
“I grew up in Palestine hearing dreadful stories about
parents and their children suffering because they couldn’t afford treatment.
Living with those children, looking into their eyes and listening to their
experiences in their own words touched me deeply. Remembering their faces and
the pain of my community, I felt the urge to become a pediatrician. Those
children and the upcoming generations need a doctor to heal their wounds and be
by their side as an advocate to guide them and light their path during their
most difficult stages,” Iqbal said.
Ladan Ghajar is also looking forward to a career in
pediatrics. She will soon be starting a residency in pediatrics at
Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in New Hampshire, United States. “After my
training, I hope to train in a fellowship program in pediatric endocrinology.
There is an increasing prevalence of obese and diabetic children, and I hope to
conduct research and educate my patients about preventative care such as diet
and exercise. My vision as a physician is to be a leader in clinical care,
medical education and research,” Ladan said.
WCMC-Q student affairs and academic
counseling director, Donney Moroney said she was delighted with the
impressive Match Day results and congratulated the students on reaching this
destination after much hard work.
“I have had the pleasure of working with some of these
students for the past six years, since their pre-medical program. Our students
continue to demonstrate their high level of commitment in the field of medicine
and I am confident they will continue to be ambassadors for the medical field but
also for the remarkable and pioneering efforts of Qatar.”
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