Every year, Georgetown's fourth-year medical students wait in anticipation for the third Thursday in March, since on this day they receive an envelope telling them where they'll spend the next three to seven years of their lives as medical residents in training.

Philip Pizzo, MD, Dean of the medical school, greeted the soon-to-be residents to the Match Day ceremony. However, what was different this year was that it was being held in the lobby of the almost-completed Li Ka Shing Center for Learning and Knowledge planned for the training of would-be doctors on the medical school campus and planned for inauguration in the fall.

Pizzo said, "I hope today is the day our nation takes one small step toward health-care reform", a battle that would be "part of your future now".

At sharp ten in the morning, envelopes are given out to each of the students by faculty. Though now, it is feasible to find the assignment online, majority of the students still opt for this ritual, which their teachers and their teachers' teachers experienced.

Charles Prober, MD, Senior Associate Dean for medical education, said around 90 students matched in 19 different specialties. 14 students went in pediatrics, 12 in internal medicine, 7 in dermatology, 7 in orthopedics, 6 in radiology, 6 in ophthalmology, 5 in psychiatry and 5 in emergency medicine.

"The class matched in 15 different states", Prober said, 50 students in California and 16 in Massachusetts.