To the School of Medicine Family: 
We recently celebrated one of the annual rites of medical education with our Match Day ceremony.
The anticipation and anxiety among our students was palpable, and, I’m proud to say, overwhelmingly rewarded when they peeled open those envelopes.
Our faculty shares in that anticipation and in the happiness of a successful match. It is a validation of the sustained effort to educate physicians who will be proud to say they earned their medical knowledge and degree at Wayne State University, and who will impress patients and colleagues around the world as they practice medicine.
This year’s match was phenomenal, and I am extraordinarily proud of what our students have accomplished.
An outstanding 96 percent of the 289 members of the Class of 2012 matched! Nationally, more than 95 percent of U.S. medical school seniors matched, so we are at or slightly above the national rate, a goal we always strive to improve upon. This is quite an accomplishment considering that 38,377 medical school graduates were competing for 26,772 first-year residency slots.
That competition will increase given the economic squeeze put on residency slot funding mechanisms at both state and federal levels. That’s why we are strengthening our career counseling services and doing everything possible to increase our students’ qualifications for future matches.
Our match results also are great news for the state of Michigan. Nearly 60 percent of our graduates will enter residency programs at hospitals in the state, at facilities like the Detroit Medical Center, Henry Ford Health Systems, Crittenton and Oakwood Hospitals. This is a testament to the quality of our health care partners. This also is a boon for a state facing a severe physician shortage. And, because many of our graduates who enter residencies in Michigan often choose to continue practicing medicine here, we benefit the state’s economy and future by producing professionals who choose to live and conduct business here.
Our graduates who are moving to residencies outside of Michigan will practice medicine in 30 states and Canada, at institutions such as the Baylor College of Medicine, the Mayo School of Graduate Education in Minnesota, the University of California San Francisco and Harvard University. They will carry with them, and sustain, the reputation that our school educates some of the finest physicians in the world.
Becoming a physician requires excellent grades. Becoming a Wayne State University physician requires something more – compassion, a sense of community-mindedness, leadership. It’s that “something more” that is the hallmark character of a WSU medical graduate.
We are proud of our newest ambassadors and privileged to be entrusted with the calling of shepherding them into the field of medicine. That privilege is a trust. The students and their families trust us to provide the best medical education we can. Patients trust that we produce doctors who are more than merely competent. The people of the greater Detroit region trust that Wayne State University physicians will continue to provide the best of care for every patient, regardless of station in life. We work hard to earn that trust and maintain a tradition that began more than 140 years ago.
Valerie M. Parisi, M.D., M.P.H., M.B.A.
Dean
Wayne State University School of Medicine