Excitement, Anxiety Over Match Day 2022

30 March 2022

On the morning of the Residency Match Day announcements, Pratik Shah ‘22OD was on a rotation refracting a patient when he started receiving text messages through his watch.

There’s always some buzz and anxiety surrounding Match Day, when all residency programs and candidates who applied received their results on where they ultimately matched after a season of residency interviews, which begins in October and closes at the end of February annually.

pratik-shah-pic1 “At that moment I was shaking and sweating but I had a few more things to do with my patient before I could check and see what was happening with my future,” said Shah.

He took a deep breath, composed himself and refocused on the task at hand. While the patient was dilating, Shah had a chance to check his emails to see where he had matched. But he didn’t see any email. Taken aback, he wondered how his friends had found out their matches, so he began texting with several of them. One suggested he check his spam.

“For some reason the email had gone to my spam folder, but when I opened it, I couldn’t believe what I was reading. I couldn’t believe it was actually happening,” said Shah, who had matched with the Pennsylvania College of Optometry (PCO) at Salus University for his residency in cornea and contact lens at the University’s clinical facility, The Eye Institute (TEI).

The reason Shah wanted to become an optometrist originated because he personally experienced problems with his own corneas.

“I had this problem where my eyes were too dried out in the morning and caused pain and blurred vision. No primary care physician was able to figure out what was going on until I went to an optometrist,” he said. “I made it mission to specialize in corneas because it was so important to me. It was the driving force on specifically why I wanted to be an eye doctor rather than go into any other specialty.”

Although residencies are not required in optometry, it does provide an extra year of intense training and education some graduates take on to focus in certain specialties and to enhance their career opportunities.

Optometry residencies go through a selection process that includes applying to programs, interviewing (typically from December through February), and submitting ranks (candidates and programs submit ranks independent and confidentially from each other), into a computer algorithm that generates results, which are released formally on Match Day.

PCO/Salus students have been matched to some of the most prestigious residency programs in the nation. Several are often matched to residency programs at TEI.

A residency at TEI includes the opportunity to serve a broad, complex patient population, interact with nationally and globally recognized PCO/Salus faculty, and to utilize available resources that support students throughout the program. This is what makes the program’s on-campus residency programs at TEI so competitive among applicants.

kiera-jeschke-pic1 “This group represents some of the brightest, most hard working, and passionate soon to be optometrists not only from PCO/Salus but optometry schools across the country,” said Chad Killen, OD ‘19, Resident ‘20, FAAO, director of the On-Campus Residency Programs at PCO/Salus. “During the next year I am excited for them to work with our brilliant faculty and also to learn from one another as they all bring unique experiences in patient care to the table. PCO/Salus has a family like environment and we are all so excited to welcome these residents into that group.”