UH Manoa
IN THE NEWS
Student Life
78 students participated in this year’s Match Day, learning where they will continue their training in residency programs across the country.
This year’s class is committed to primary care, with 56 percent matching into Internal Medicine, Family Medicine, Pediatrics, and OB-GYN, fields that remain in high demand across Hawaiʻi.
JABSOM Dean Sam Shomaker, MD said that commitment reflects the school’s mission to serve the state’s most pressing health care needs.
“Primary care is the backbone of a healthy community, and Hawaiʻi continues to face a critical need in these areas,” Shomaker said. “We are proud to see so many of our students choosing this path and staying true to our mission of training physicians who will serve our communities here at home.”
It was also a big year for surgery, with 19 percent of the class matching into surgical specialties.
Closer to home, 33 percent of the class will remain in Hawaiʻi for residency.
Kerrick Chinen and family.
“As cheesy as it might sound, I think it means the world to me,” said Kerrick Chinen. “I grew up in this place, these people have raised me, and it’s an absolute honor to be back serving the people and practicing even more at home.”
Chinen admitted staying in Hawaiʻi was never guaranteed.
“The heart said I really wanted to stay at home, but I knew the reality of it. It was a little dicey,” he said. “So it was an absolute relief opening that envelope up and seeing University of Hawaiʻi.”
Jonathan Carino’s goal was always to stay home.
Jonathan Carino and family.
“That’s always been my intention,” Carino said. “To do residency somewhere not in Hawaiʻi didn’t sit right with me, and I’m really glad I’m staying home here at UH. My path to med school hasn’t always been a straight line, but all the people I’ve met, my friends, my mom and dad, my sister, their support and love helped me get through it. To finally stay home and be here with them, I’m stoked.”
Nationally, more than 38,000 medical students matched into residency programs this year, making it the largest Match in the history of the National Resident Matching Program.
Chinen and Carino are excited and ready to give back to the community that shaped them.
“Those are the people who stick with you from a very young age,” Chinen said. “Your aunties, your uncles, even if you’re not related, they’re the ones taking care of you. Eventually, you get the chance to give back. That’s what’s so important about being home in Hawaiʻi.”
“This is exactly what I wanted,” Carino said. “To go through med school here at home and find out I’m going to practice here at home, I’m ecstatic. I have no words.”
Photos of the day are actively being edited and added to our JABSOM Flickr:
