Members of BU’s Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine MD Class of 2026 reach for the envelopes telling them which residency training program they matched into. Photo by Zoe Farr

Student Life

Match Day 2026: BU’s Graduating MDs Learn Their Assigned Residency Training Programs

In annual event, fourth-year medical students from across the nation found out where they’ll spend the next three to seven years

Joshua Lepson was 15 and in the middle of swim practice at Brookline High School when he experienced the worst headache of his life. He’d lost his sense of balance and orientation and had to be helped out of the pool.

Once home, his mother, Johanna Klein (CAMED’94), a primary care physician, knew something was wrong. He was rushed to the hospital with a brain hemorrhage that affected his motor skills and required years of rehabilitation to recover from.

“The sense of my body in space was completely disrupted,” Lepson says. “It was definitely a profound disruption to my life.”

He went from being an active teen to having to relearn how to walk. Despite long absences, Lepson (CAMED’26) kept up with schoolwork. When prospects looked dim, he relied on a will fueled by what he calls “delusional self-belief.”

“I thought, why can’t I get back to the way I was? Why not me?” he recalls. “I think that shaped the way I view any challenge now.”

That challenge included successfully completing medical school, and on Friday, March 20, at exactly noon, Lepson joined more than 15,000 fourth-year medical students across the country, 135 of them at BU’s Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine, in opening an envelope to discover where they would be spending the next three to seven years. 

In the George Sherman Union’s Metcalf Hall on BU’s Charles River Campus, families and friends celebrated as the soon-to-be MDs matched to residency training programs, where they will learn their specialty under the supervision of experienced physicians. 

“My top two choices were a coin flip, so I’m very happy,” says Lepson, who matched into the internal medicine residency program at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston.

Match Day traditionally falls on the third Friday in March, which this year happened to be the first day of spring, a day of new beginnings. Organized by the medical school’s Student Affairs Office and the Student Match Day Committee, the event was the public culmination of a process overseen by the National Resident Matching Program, which uses an algorithm to pair students with residency programs according to preference lists developed by the students and the programs.

Priya Garg associate dean of medical education at the medical school and an associate professor of pediatrics, congratulated the class on being the first to fully experience, across their years of education, a new team-based learning curriculum. Feedback from the class spoke of the high value they placed on working collaboratively, she said.

“Medicine is about connections, it’s about the people and support systems that keep you well, it’s about the small moments with your patients and your soon-to-be fellow residents, your colleagues,” Garg said.

Angela Jackson, associate dean of student affairs and an associate professor of medicine at the medical school, counseled the class to be humble and kind. “You know a lot. You will learn even more. Your skills will grow… But remember to stay humble and teachable,” she said. “Listen to the nurses, to your peers, and to the medical students you will be working with and teaching, and not just to those who outrank you.

“Be kind always…to everyone, but especially to yourself,” Jackson said.

It was indeed the kindness, commitment, and care of the doctors and healthcare professionals tending to his sister, who has cerebral palsy, that set Jeet Kothari (CAMED’26), a first-generation American, on the path to becoming a doctor. Kothari matched into a pediatric residency at C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital, University of Michigan Ann Arbor.

Kothari’s parents immigrated to the United States from India. His father is a homebuilder and his mother a pulmonologist. His mother’s dedication to her profession and her patients during the COVID-19 pandemic impressed on him the sense of purpose and sacrifice imbued in a medical career.

Even so, following his second year in medical school, with its rigorous academics, he decided to take a year off and went home to Atlanta, where he did some research and worked as an Uber driver. He also reconnected with his sister’s experience and her caregivers.

 “In that process, I rediscovered why I wanted to do medicine, and ultimately, pediatrics,” he says. “Her physicians really saw her as a person—a human and not the sum of her conditions—and that really made me want to be that type of pediatrician.”

Youssef Younossi is headed into the neurology resident program at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia.

“I’m over the moon happy,” says Younossi (CAMED’26), whose parents immigrated from Afghanistan. There were several physicians in his family when he was growing up, so Younossi knew what the realities of a medical career were, but he wanted to be sure about it before committing to medical school. He enjoyed finance as an undergraduate, but after three years at a private equity firm in Washington, D.C., the joy was gone.

“I didn’t feel like I was making the impact I wanted to make,” he says. “So, I turned back to medicine, because I knew that in medicine you never question your purpose. There’s a lot of tough aspects to it, but I think most people don’t ask, ‘What am I doing here?’ It’s very clear what your impact will be.”

Heather Miselis (CAMED’00,‘04, SPH’00), medical school associate dean of alumni affairs and an associate professor of family medicine, told the assembled students that as an alumna, she, and other alumni, understand the significance of the day, “the mix of emotions, the thrill of discovering your match, the relief of knowing your hard work and commitment to the study of medicine paid off.

“We also remember the uncertainty that accompanies such a significant transition,” Miselis said. “Remember that you are part of a network of engaged and supportive alumni who have walked this path and stand beside you, ready to encourage and guide you.”