Samuel Castro spent more than a decade helping his dad navigate cancer. Maria Isabel Barros Guinle saw her mom live with a neurological disorder while working as a sculptor. Georgiana Burnside felt the warmth and support of many medical experts as she recovered from a debilitating spinal cord injury as a teenager.

The experiences that inspired these Stanford Medicine students to become physicians — and informed the medical specialties they chose — were on their minds March 20 as they learned where they will spend the next chapters of their lives.

At Stanford Medicine’s annual celebration of Match Day, Castro, Barros Guinle and Burnside stood alongside 83 of their fellow medical students and counted down together to 9 a.m. Pacific time as they tore open red envelopes to reveal where they will go for residency training.

Match Day takes place on the third Friday in March, with students across the country simultaneously learning their futures. It's the culmination of a monthslong process: Last fall, medical students began applying and interviewing at residency programs across the country. The students and programs then rank each other, and an algorithm determines where each student ends up.

This year, on the 74th annual Match Day, all 86 of Stanford Medicine’s applicants matched to programs around the country. They were cheered on at the celebration by about 425 guests — family members, loved ones and friends — as well as many of their professors and mentors.

“You’re entering our profession, the medical profession, at an extraordinary time,” said Lloyd Minor, MD, the Carl and Elizabeth Naumann Professor fot the Dean of the School of Medicine and vice president for medical affairs at Stanford University, in his remarks before the students opened their envelopes. “Never before have there been the opportunities to bring science to the benefit of our patients, never before has there been the need to serve our patients, to serve society, in the ways that all of you have the opportunity to fulfill. I know you’re going to do great things.”

“Wherever you go, these will be transformative years of residency,” Reena Thomas, MD, PhD, senior associate dean of medical education, told the students. “Residency is often described as one of the most demanding times in your journey as a future physician. Also, one of the most meaningful, where knowledge becomes instinct, where responsibilities deepen and where you will grow in ways you cannot fully imagine today.”

A family’s struggle

Castro was listening with his mom, his fiancée, his two sisters, a cousin and a close friend, all there to support him. His father, who was diagnosed with a sarcoma when Castro was 5, died shortly before Castro entered medical school. Although watching his dad’s multiyear struggle with cancer initially inspired him to study biomedical engineering, the opportunity to connect science and people as a physician ultimately felt like the right path.

“My mom said, ‘You talk so much, you can be friends with rocks!’” Castro said with a chuckle. Before and after his dad’s many cancer surgeries, he interpreted conversations with doctors for his Spanish-speaking parents, immigrants from Mexico. As a medical student, he realized he loved advocating for patients undergoing surgery and in the intensive care unit, which prompted him to apply for residency positions in anesthesiology.

Barros Guinle, who goes by Bel, applied for residences in neurosurgery because she’s fascinated by the brain and loves to use her hands, like her sculptor mom. The first woman in her immediate family to finish high school, she was thrilled that her mother and grandmother were able to travel from Brazil, where she grew up, to support her on Match Day.

Barros Guinle recalled an experience during a neurosurgery elective course that cemented her interest in the specialty: A patient awoke from an emergency surgery she’d assisted with and began yelling at her.

“He was very angry,” she recalled. “He said, ‘I want a glass of water! I’m so thirsty!’ And I remember thinking, ‘Wow, I’ve never been so happy to be yelled at in my life!’”

It was a stark contrast to the moments before surgery, when a severe brain bleed put so much pressure on the patient’s brain that “this man had no idea who he was, where he was. He could barely speak to us,” Barros Guinle said. “And now he knew that he was in a hospital, that he was thirsty, that his head hurt. I couldn’t believe that I touched someone’s life in such a powerful way.”

Unlike most of her peers, Burnside went into Match Day not knowing what her match specialty would be.

“I applied to two specialties because I could not decide between internal medicine and anesthesia,” Burnside said. “I loved both.”

Both residency programs provide paths to the intensive care unit, where Burnside ultimately wants to practice critical care medicine. During her medical school rotation in the intensive care unit, she fell in love with delivering high-stakes health care.

“While it was very mentally challenging, it’s where a lot of my personal skill set does best. And these are experiences I had as a patient: I was a recipient of incredible ICU care.”

Returning a favor

As clocks ticked down the minutes to 9 a.m., the students collected their red envelopes. Castro’s mom, Gabriela Castro, gave him a hug and her blessing. He then handed her his envelope to open for him.

“Ta da!” said Gabriela Castro, unfolding the letter inside.

“Yeah! Stanford!” Castro cheered. He matched at his first choice: Stanford Medicine’s anesthesiology residency.

Around the room, more cheers broke out. Burnside and Barros Guinle also matched at Stanford Medicine, in anesthesiology and neurosurgery, respectively.

The dean led a toast to the students, and the crowd listened to remarks from Ethan Nicholls, MD, president of the Board of Governors of the Stanford Medicine Alumni Association, and Benjamin Jacobson, a matching student.

“Embrace the challenges. Residency will test you, but it will also reveal a level of strength and capability that you did not know you possessed,” said Nicholls, who graduated from the Stanford School of Medicine in 1988.

Jacobson encouraged his classmates to stay true to themselves during the next phase of their development as physicians. “Wherever you’re headed next, remember that your med school friends are only a phone call away,” he said. “Congratulations, everyone, and I can’t wait to call you all for medical advice.”

The crowd laughed, and everyone headed out into the spring sun and their futures.