Dr. Jason Knuffman: Reflecting on Match Day

For med­ical stu­dents, this isn’t just anoth­er day. It’s Match Day — a big day, where a sin­gle enve­lope holds the key to their future. Inside, they’ll find their res­i­den­cy place­ment, the pro­gram that will train them and turn their dreams of becom­ing a doc­tor into real­i­ty. We caught up with Dr. Jason Knuff­man, physi­cian at Quin­cy Med­ical Group who spe­cial­izes in Aller­gy and Immunol­o­gy, to hear his mem­o­ries of this momen­tous day.

“I was part of the St. Louis Uni­ver­si­ty Med­ical School class of 2001, and we had our Match Day ceremony/​lunch at a place called ​‘Win­dows on Wash­ing­ton’ in down­town St. Louis. As my girl­friend (now wife, Rebec­ca) is from Mil­wau­kee, we were hop­ing for a Madi­son or Mil­wau­kee match for Inter­nal Med­i­cine, and I was very for­tu­nate to match at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Wis­con­sin in Madi­son.
It was a time of my life where I was ready to tack­le pret­ty much any­thing, so I was not nec­es­sar­i­ly ner­vous but rather more curi­ous, pri­or to match. After­wards, it was extra spe­cial because some close friends also matched at Uni­ver­si­ty of Wis­con­sin Hos­pi­tal for med­i­cine and oth­er spe­cial­ties. It was quite incred­i­ble to see class­mates, upon open­ing a sim­ple let­ter, go lit­er­al­ly all over the coun­try, coast-to-coast to fur­ther their training.

Words of wis­dom I have for cur­rent med­ical school grad­u­ates would include to basi­cal­ly relax and that you were meant to go where you match. It’s your des­tiny. You will be suc­cess­ful any­where as long as you apply your­self and seek out learn­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties and men­tors. Have con­fi­dence in your choic­es and go into it real­iz­ing that the pro­gram you match with is excit­ed to get start­ed turn­ing you into a doctor!”

Con­grat­u­la­tions to all the new res­i­dents as you con­tin­ue on your path to enhanc­ing the lives of the patients and com­mu­ni­ties you serve.