"It's pretty surreal," said Awapuhi Lee, MS4 at the University of Hawaiʻi John A. Burns School of Medicine. "In my first year, I didn't realize how quickly Match Day would come, but then it was here."
On Match Day, medical students across the country learn where the next chapter in their medical careers will take them. Destinations are learned simultaneously across all medical schools, so this morning at 6am HST, 71 JABSOM students, along with their families and friends, packed the auditorium and overflow rooms in the Medical Education Building.
"Just being able to open that envelope and see where I was going was just amazing, and now it's hitting me that I'm going to be a doctor soon," Lee said.
Lee, a Native Hawaiian born and raised in Pearl City who attended Kamehameha, learned she will continue serving her state as part of JABSOM's Psychiatry residency program.
"It means a lot. It's one of the main reasons I went into medicine, to begin with," Lee said. "Being able to stay home and train with the population that I'm going to work with in the future was really important to me."
With the state continuing to face a physician shortage, JABSOM had a strong showing in the primary care specialties that Hawaiʻi needs the most.
66 percent of the Class of 2025 will enter Internal Medicine, Pediatrics, Family Medicine or OB-GYN. Amanda Tsuhako, an Iolani graduate, is one of them.
"It's so important to me to stay home here in Hawaiʻi and take care of the patients I want to help in the future. I plan to stay home and hopefully move to a neighbor island," she said.
Working on a neighbor island was never on her mind until she visited Lānaʻi during her second year at JABSOM.
"Six of us were sent there with the Rural Health Medicine Group and working with the community and seeing how much they band together to overcome the limited access to healthcare and take care of each other and keep everyone on the island as much as possible, I just want to help that community so they can live long, healthy lives on Lānaʻi," Tsuhako said.
41 percent of the Class of 2025 will train in Hawaiʻi for residency, a ten percentage point increase from 2024. Nathan Kim, a Mililani High graduate, is entering JABSOM's Orthopaedic Surgery residency program.
"Being born and raised here, I went to undergrad here, medical school here, and now I get to do residency here," Kim said. "I think it just makes so much more sense to be able to continue this journey, and I know I want to serve the people of Hawaiʻi."
That call to serve our population rings true for many JABSOM students. While staying in Hawaiʻi to learn and serve is a priority for many JABSOM students, some are forced to complete residency on the continent as the state doesn't have residency programs in all medical specialties. Those who are able to stay are grateful.
"It means the world to me," Tsuhako said. "I can't imagine any other career, and being a Family Medicine physician who takes care of people from birth to pregnancy to the last chapter of life is just so important to me. Staying home in Hawaiʻi and taking care of this community means so much. I couldn't have done it without my family supporting me, my friends and just the people of Hawaiʻi and the love and support they've given.
Lee says growing up and completing her education in Hawaiʻi will help her connect with the patients she will soon serve as a psychiatrist.
"The chance to grow up here, you have that background, you know a little bit and can connect with patients a little bit easier, share similarities in how you grew up, and I'm really excited to learn more about communities I may not have worked with in the past and grow with them."
