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Imagine standing in a balloon-filled room with your closest supporters and friends you’ve studied with for the past four years. You, and each of your peers, hold an envelope that will determine your fate. When the clock counts down, you open the envelope to learn where you will spend the next three to seven years of your life.

This describes Match Day, a national rite of passage for medical school students moving onto residency programs. A complex algorithm matches the students’ top choice of residencies with the programs’ top choice of students. On March 18, the Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University in Philadelphia welcomed its Class of 2022, including 30 students who studied exclusively at Temple/St. Luke’s School of Medicine in Bethlehem, the region’s first and only medical school.

This year’s graduates spent nearly half of their medical education emersed in a global pandemic. This is the first year since 2019 that Match Day was celebrated in person – a significant step forward. “National Match Day is an unforgettable milestone for every medical student across the country,” said Shaden Eldakar-Hein, MD. She is the Senior Associate Dean of Temple/St. Luke’s School of Medicine and Associate Professor, Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University. “We are proud of graduating class of 2022 and are thrilled with their placements. The residency programs they have matched to are adding amazing physicians to their teams.”

Nick Roma learns he is staying with St. Luke’s for residency.

Born and raised in the Lehigh Valley, Nicholas Roma, a Muhlenberg College graduate, hopes to match with St. Luke’s combined residency and fellowship program in internal medicine and cardiology. It’s the nation’s only program of its kind. On Match Day, he got his wish, as his envelope revealed he would be continuing on at St. Luke's.

“In 10 years, I envision my career at St. Luke’s as an interventional cardiologist,” he said, adding that St. Luke’s electrophysiologist and faculty Darren Traub, MD nurtured his interest in the field. “Dr. Traub had a huge impact on my career. Interventional cardiology’s one of the few careers where you have immediate impact. Heart attack patients come in with terrible chest pain, and after a 20-minute procedure, it’s relieved. It’s extraordinary.”

Jessica Gude, now a St. Luke’s OB/GYN Resident, is joined by Shaden Edakar-Hein, MD (left) and Kathy Dave, PhD, (right)

Jessica Gude of Delaware will join St. Luke's in OB/GYN Residency. She admits the babies drew her to the specialty, but her experience with gynecological surgery made her stay. She also enjoys the emotional spectrum from sharing the joy of a healthy baby to supporting patients through a loss or cancer diagnosis.

Raised by college professors in Seneca, South Carolina, Sarah Falta is following the path of her grandfather, a Temple Medical School graduate. She matched with the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center in internal medicine and will be part of their Global Health track.

“I come from a scientific family where I was encouraged to be intellectually curious,” she said. As an internal medicine physician, she can pursue her scientific interests while also interacting with people from all walks of life, which she relishes.

Emily Rothermel of Fleetwood will be headed to Carolinas Medical Center to pursue a career in physical medicine & rehabilitation (PM&R). A rotation with St. Luke’s physiatrist Geeta Sathe, MD inspired Rothermel to work with children with neurological injuries and congenital conditions like spina bifida, Down syndrome and cerebral palsy. “I want to improve the quality of life for my patients, because at the end of the day, adding life to one’s years is as important as adding years to one’s life.”

The students all said they would recommend Temple/St. Luke’s School of Medicine to anyone. They benefitted from the small class size and warm interaction of the professors, physician mentors, residents, fellows and other medical students.

Sarah Falta is excited to begin her training in Internal Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.

“Temple/St. Luke’s helped me grow and trust myself,” Falta said. “It prepared me for starting residency, which is all you really want from medical school.”

The Temple/St. Luke’s Class of 2022 will graduate May 6 in Philadelphia. The medical school will welcome the incoming Class of 2026 in August.

For more information about Temple/St. Luke’s please see www.sluhn.org/som and for other graduate medical education programs at St. Luke’s University Health Network, please see www.sluhn.org/gme.

Temple/St. Luke’s School of Medicine
Class of 2022 Matched Programs

Anesthesiology
Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania

Emergency Medicine
Brown University/Rhode Island Hospital
Carilion Clinic-Virginia Tech Carilion SOM
St. Luke’s University Hospital – Bethlehem
Univ. Central Florida – Ocala

Family Medicine
Offutt Air Force Base
Penn State Hershey Medical Center

General Surgery
Cedars-Sinai Medical Center

Internal Medicine
Penn State Hershey Medical Center
Rutgers- RW Johnson Medical School
St. Luke’s University Hospital – Bethlehem
Tufts Medical Center
Tulane University School of Medicine

Internal Medicine/Cardiology
St. Luke’s University Hospital – Bethlehem

Internal Medicine/Global Health
University of Pittsburgh Medical Center

Internal Medicine/Primary Care
NYU Grossman SOM - Brooklyn

Neurological Surgery
Southern Illinois Univ. & Affiliated Hospitals

Neurology
Thomas Jefferson University
UC Davis Medical Center

Obstetrics/Gynecology
St. Luke’s University Hospital – Bethlehem

Pediatrics
Children’s Hospital – Oakland, CA

Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation
Carolinas Medical Center
Thomas Jefferson University

Radiology/Diagnostic Radiology
Temple University Hospital

Surgery – Preliminary
Kaweah Delta Health Care District, CA
Vanderbilt University Medical Center
Yale-New Haven Hospital

Transitional Year
St. Luke’s Anderson Campus
St. Luke’s University Hospital – Bethlehem

Vascular Surgery
Allegheny General Hospital