122 students at the Warren Alpert Medical School matched into nationwide residency programs, with 23 receiving offers at Brown and 16 at Harvard.
The medical students gathered on Friday for Match Day at the Warren Alpert Medical School to find out where they had matched for residency. During the historic balloon drop at noon, demonstrators simultaneously dropped six 12-foot banners with names of over 400 health care workers that have been killed in Gaza since the beginning of the war between Israel and Hamas on Oct. 7. The banners also read “Ceasefire Now!” and “Free Palestine!”
The demonstration was organized by Brown Med for Palestine, a medical student group. Warren Alpert medical students, Brown undergraduates and members of external organizations such as the Rhode Island Coalition for Palestinian Liberation all participated in the demonstration, according to Ella Satish MD’25, a member of BM4P.
Prior to the balloon drop, Dean of Medicine and Biological Sciences Mukesh Jain gave a speech congratulating the class of 2024.
“Remember one thing: No matter what is in that red envelope, no matter where life takes you next, the outcome does not define you,” Jain said. “You’re more than ready for anything that awaits you in that red envelope.”
Director of Career Development Alex Morang then led the countdown to noon as medical students lined up underneath an American flag to receive the envelopes containing their match results.
Uche Onwunaka MD’24, a member of BM4P, opened her match day results with the rest of the class of 2024. She matched with Boston University Medical Center for emergency medicine — her top choice.
“I had a moment of cognitive dissonance where it’s like, ‘Oh, I’m opening this letter, and I’m so excited.’ But at the same time … there are people who have lost their lives doing this job,” Onwunaka said, referencing the health care workers killed in Gaza. “And that's really heartbreaking. So we wanted to take a moment to remember them too,” she added.
Onwunaka and Satish said the organizers decided to demonstrate at Match Day because it is the medical school’s most publicized event.
Representatives from BM4P also sent a letter to the medical school’s administration reiterating demands previously stated in a Nov. 3 letter. According to a copy of the letter reviewed by The Herald, over 146 signatories requested the school to publicly condemn “the violence and destruction against the health care system that the Israeli state is inflicting against Palestine,” to provide direct monetary aid to “support our international colleagues” and open an “investigation into the current policies and economic relationships held by Brown … which continue to perpetuate violence and human rights violations against the Palestinian people.”
The letter cited data from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. As of March 12, 348 health workers have been killed in the conflict and only 12 of 36 hospitals in Gaza remain partially functional, the OCHA reported.
Other sources, such as the Healthcare Workers Watch Palestine initiative, point to 458 health care workers killed as of March 11.
“In (medical) school and medicine, we’re taught to remove ourselves … we should be neutral, or we should not be self-disclosing,” Satish said. “But … solidarity is something that’s costly. You give something of yourself.”
“If we’re gonna practice medical neutrality, it needs to come from a place of advocating for the marginalized, the people who are not part of the conversation,” Onwunaka added. “There seems to be an exception when it comes to Palestine, and that’s what we’re trying to highlight with this demonstration.”
Assistant Dean of Biomedical Communications Kris Cambra confirmed in an email to The Herald “that the leadership of the Medical School received a letter from a group of students presenting their demands in November and Dean Jain and Senior Associate Dean Star Hampton met with the students involved at that time to discuss their concerns.”
In response to students’ claims, Cambra wrote that “The Medical School values direct dialogue and engagement with members of our community rather than responding indirectly through news media or other channels.”
Jain told The Herald that he noticed the demonstrations, and the posters were a reminder that “even on a happy day, members of our community are deeply impacted by events happening in our world right now.”
When asked if demonstrators would be held to any disciplinary action, Jain said the decision would be based upon whether the actions were within Brown’s policies on posters and banners.
“We were prepared for (any repercussions) because we felt like it mattered more to hold space for the people who have been killed, who are our colleagues,” Onwunaka said.
After the balloons and banners dropped, students celebrated their matches and filled out residency signs declaring their program and specialty.
According to the data published on the school’s website, 27 students matched for internal medicine, the most popular specialty this year. There were 14 matches to emergency medicine and nine to obstetrics/gynecology, the second and third most popular specialties, respectively.
Other students matched into residency programs far from Providence. Yang Lin MD’24 matched into his first choice at the University of Southern California’s Keck School of Medicine for general surgery.
“I looked at (my results) and it was my number one choice and I was so, so happy honestly,” Lin said. “It was everything I hoped for, and it was great to have my family and friends around to celebrate with me.” He added that he did not notice the demonstration.
Josh Goldenberg MD’24 matched in psychiatry at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston.
“I was elated,” Goldenberg said. “There’s no feeling quite like opening up that envelope and seeing what the next few years are going to have in store.”
“My hopes for these students going forward is that they flourish wherever they go,” Jain said. “We have poured everything we have into preparing them to be physicians over the past four years … They are ready for any challenges and I just wish them great success in this next phase of their careers.”
Anisha Kumar is a section editor covering University Hall. She is a junior from Menlo Park, California concentrating in English and Political Science who loves speed-crosswording and rewatching sitcoms.
Claire Song is a Senior Staff Writer covering science & research. She is a sophomore from California studying Applied Math-Biology. She likes to drink boba in her free time.
