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An accidental meeting with an orthopedic surgeon changed J.D. Schwartzman’s life when he was in middle school – and Friday, 20 years later, the dream that encounter inspired became a reality during National Residency Match Day. Schwartzman, a UCF College of Medicine senior, matched into orthopedic surgery, one of the nation’s most competitive specialties, at Baylor.
“Orthopedic surgery gives you the amazing ability to return mobility to people and return them to an active lifestyle that is so important to health,” said Schwartzman, who did his undergraduate work at Duke, where he competed in fencing.
Schwartzman was one of 119 UCF students to match into residencies in specialties including internal medicine, psychiatry, emergency medicine, pediatrics, OB-GYN and anesthesiology. UCF’s Class of 2025 earned a 100% placement rate. This year’s national average was 93.5%.
M.D. graduates cannot practice medicine without first completing a residency in their selected specialty. They spend their fourth year of medical school interviewing with residency programs across the nation. They list their top choices and residency programs do the same. A computer then matches each list. Matches are kept secret until noon EST on the third Friday in March.
Nationwide, UCF students are going to residency programs at programs including Baylor, Brown, Cleveland Clinic, Emory, Johns Hopkins, USC and Vanderbilt. Forty-four are doing all or part of their residency training in Florida, including eight at Orlando Health, 11 at UCF-HCA residencies, Miami, Mayo Clinic Jacksonville, University of Florida and University of South Florida.
Schwartzman was in 7th grade in Bethesda, MD and his school held monthly cultural awareness fairs that included foods of a particular culture. He loved learning about other countries and especially enjoyed the food. One month, as he walked in, he discovered the fair had been replaced with a career lecture. “The food certainly wasn’t as good but I thought it would be rude to walk out, so I stayed,” he said. The speaker was an orthopedic surgeon. Schwartzman was the only teenager who wasn’t “grossed out” by the surgical photos. He went home that night and told his parents he was going to become an orthopedic surgeon. That dream never faltered. He came to UCF because of the medical school’s pioneering spirit and the chance to help create a program in an emerging Medical City at Lake Nona. Friday, after opening his Match envelope, he called the orthopedic surgeon who inspired him to say thank you. “That doctor has no idea the impact he had on my life,” he said.
Dreams, life and inspiration were on the mind of Dr. Deborah German, vice president for health affairs and dean of UCF’s medical school, when she welcomed students and their families to UCF Match Day. “At noon,“ she said, “as you open your Match envelope, you are opening the door to your future.”
Valeriya Prytkova thought she wanted to be an OB-GYN, but then on vacation during her first year of medical school, her father was shot during a robbery. He survived but the experience taught Prytkova the importance of emergency care and how traumatic incidents impact families. Friday, she matched into Emergency Medicine at Orlando Health, her first choice. “I know first-hand what it means to be on the other side of emergency medicine,” she said.
Claudia Orozco Vega is a double Knight – she earned her undergraduate degree from UCF before entering medical school. She trained at a pediatric pulmonary clinic during her third year of medical school and cared for children suffering from cystic fibrosis. The challenge, she said, is when such children reach 18. Who cares for them? “There’s a huge gap for these kids once they reach adulthood,” she said. “I want to help fill that gap.” She discovered the Internal Medicine Pediatrics specialty, which trains doctors who care for patients from child to adulthood for conditions like CF, diabetes, sickle cell anemia and cancer. She will do her training at Rush University, her first choice.
