MEDIA ADVISORY: March 19, 2002

CONTACT: Beth Porter, (202) 687-4699 or (202) 687-5100, bap2@georgetown.edu

Georgetown University School of Medicine
Holding Annual "Match Day" Ceremony

Washington, D.C. — "Match Day" is one of the most exciting days in a medical student's life-it symbolizes the start of his or her career as a physician. On Match Day, fourth-year medical students across the country find out which residency program they have been placed in. A residency program is the three- to seven-year intensive training medical training that physicians are required to complete before they may practice medicine on their own.

The excitement is heightened by the Match Day ceremony, at which students are joined by friends, family and faculty. Medical School Senior Associate Dean Ray Mitchell, MD, and other faculty members present students with envelopes containing their match results, but the students aren't allowed to open the envelopes until everyone has received one. When the distribution of the envelopes is final, Dean Mitchell gives students the OK to open their envelopes-and mayhem ensues, as students pop champagne corks, jump up and down, and (in most cases) scream with joy at learning their results.

Please RSVP for exact parking instructions.

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Georgetown University Medical Center includes the nationally ranked School of Medicine, School of Nursing and Health Studies, the Lombardi Cancer Center and a biomedical research enterprise. For more information, visit www.georgetown.edu/gumc.

Editor's Note: To RSVP, call Beth Porter Beth Porter, Associate Director of Media Relations (202) 687-4699 or bap2@georgetown.edu. On the day of the event, you can reach me on my pager: (888) 997-4755 or cell phone: (301) 404-3259.