TCU
Sam Sayed’s American life began when his mother and father moved from Egypt in the mid-1970s. They were seeking a better life in the land of the free.
They immigrated to Minnesota and later moved to Fort Worth-Dallas, where some years later Sayed was born in Arlington.
On Friday morning, Sayed, a senior med student at TCU’s Anne Burnett Marion School of Medicine, found out he’s moving to Minnesota for his residency at the prestigious Mayo Clinic in Rochester.
That simply seemed meant to be.
“Coming from where I come from it’s hard to really even dream about this in a tangible way,” Sayed said. “I feel like I’m going to get pinched one day.”
He's merely living a dream. Sayed was among the members of the Class of 2024 who found out where they would begin the next phase of their medical education. In addition to The Mayo Clinic, acclaimed institutions UCLA Health, Duke University Medical Center, and UT Southwestern Medical Center were among the destinations.
They learned where they will spend the next four to seven years of their medical careers during a Match Day event at the Cowtown Coliseum in the Historic Fort Worth Stockyards.
“When these students walked into our school four years ago, they walked into the health care profession during the uncertainty of the pandemic each with a passion to help others despite that uncertainty,” said Stuart D. Flynn, founding Dean of Burnett School of Medicine at TCU. “This moment is the culmination of four years of hard work and dedication. These are future physicians that will make all of us proud. They will continue to learn about their patients, their illnesses, and themselves.”
Each year, fourth-year medical students across the country find out where they will begin their careers as doctors within the specialty of their choice at the same time. The National Resident Matching Program releases results to applicants seeking residency and fellowship training positions in the United States at 11 a.m. Central on the third Friday of March each year.
The NRMP conducts the match using a computerized mathematical algorithm to align the preferences of applicants with the preferences of U.S. residency programs seeking new trainees. Residency training for most graduates will begin in June or July.
The process of matching in a residency is crazy competitive. There are more med school graduates than residency slots. This year’s match included 44,853 applicants and 41,503 certified positions in 6,395 residency training programs, according to NMRP.
“I’m just so grateful that I did match,” said Sophie Wix, who landed a residency in dermatology at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. “The field just lends itself to someone who loves research and wants to contribute to the cutting edge of the field.”
Burnett School of Medicine students will be entering 25 residency programs in Texas, including nine in North Texas. The most popular specialty was Emergency Medicine with 10 students going into that field. Rounding out the top 10 most popular specialties were: General Surgery, Obstetrics & Gynecology, Family Medicine, Anesthesiology, Pediatrics, Internal Medicine, Orthopedic Surgery, and Psychiatry.
Sayed is among those going the Emergency Medicine route.
Sayed’s story is all the more interesting by the Arlington-based nonprofit he started with his brother Sharif. The mission of Dayna’s Footprints is to instill confidence in underprivileged students by buying them name-brand shoes.
Their call to action is combatting learning inequities through less understood ways, Sam has said in the past. He once gave a TED Talk about the mission, which is inspired by his sister Dayna, who did the same for the brothers when they were young. She worked all summer to buy them their first pairs of expensive shoes.
Dayna tragically was killed in a drive-by shooting 24 years ago at the age of 16.
Family and friends of the students along with faculty and staff from the medical school were able to join the students in the arena to celebrate their match.
Dayna was undoubtedly with Sam on Friday.
“Medical school and the process to get here to Match Day is a roller coaster,” said Yolanda Becker, director of Career and Professional Development at Burnett School of Medicine. “After years of preparation they are about to embark on their life’s work. This is one of the most exciting times of their lives when they will move on to the next phase of their journey and continue to learn and teach.”
The event featured a trick roper on horseback and rodeo cowboys and cowgirls, who handed out the envelopes containing their residency match.
The students were also given commemorative belt buckles as a keepsake.