Med Students Match In Highly Competitive Urology Residencies

Two M.D. students from the UCF College of Medicine have been selected into highly competitive urology residencies, a specialty so competitive that only 285 of 446 students seeking such specialties nationwide matched.

Kelly Johnson, who will graduate in May from UCF’s medical school, and Ruth Strakosha, a member of the charter class of 2013, both matched into residencies at the University of South Florida.

Medical school graduates cannot practice medicine until they have completed a residency. In their fourth year of medical school, students interview with programs and then rank their choices. Residency programs do the same, placing students in order of their top candidates. A national computer then matches students and programs – ensuring that students are placed in their highest choice with a program that has also chosen them. Some residencies, like urology, have early matches. Most medical students will participate in National Match Day and learn the location of their residency training at noon on March 21.

“These results are very exciting because so far we have a 100 percent match success rate,” said Dr. Deborah German, UCF vice president for medical affairs and dean of the medical school. “This is a great start to the New Year and our match season. Congratulations to our entire faculty who teach, advise and guide our students.”

Strakosha spent the last year in a highly competitive post-doctoral research fellowship in robotics and innovative technologies in the Department of Urology of Boston’s Children’s Hospital. There she worked as a robotics training specialist who taught urologists from across the globe on new principles of robotic surgery. She said she was drawn to urology because “it is the perfect mix of medicine and surgery and one of the earliest adopters of new technology, as with robotic surgery. I love the idea of having an arsenal of tools with which to care for patients.” Strakosha, who attended UCF as an undergraduate and Orlando’s University High School, said she is also “very excited to come back to Florida.”