Two graduates of Lebanon High School opened their Match Day envelopes March 15 to see where they would be placed for residency when they graduate from COMP-Northwest next month.
Laurie (Newton) Reed, a 2007 LHS graduate, said the day of the formal event was both exciting and terrifying. She had in mind where she and her family wanted to go, but she applied for both family and emergency medicine positions.
“I ranked a lot of programs, but my top ones were in Michigan and Ohio because they had the programs that I love the best, and they had the best fishing for my husband,” Reed said.
She said she loves both specialties and hoped she could perhaps get into an emergency medicine program that would allow her to moonlight as a hospitalist or in free primary care clinics.
After letting her 3-year-old daughter, Leah, help open the envelope, she told her husband, Derek Reed, they were going to Beaumont Health in Farmington Hills, Mich.
“I got my top rank for emergency medicine, and they’re the ones that let you moonlight as a hospitalist,” she said. “It’s my top choice. I’m excited. I thought maybe I was reaching a little too high to put them first, but I guess not.”
The Reeds have already researched housing and school districts in the area, and they know from experience it has great fishing.
Morgan (Wimmer) Florek, a 2010 LHS graduate, was “extremely excited” to be matched at her No. 1 choice, as well – at Good Samaritan Regional Medical Center in Corvallis. Her desire was to stay in her community.
“I am very passionate about this community,” she said. “I still have a lot of family who lives here, I grew up here. And I see how much people struggle and how hard it is to find a primary care physician, how they don’t have access to a lot of resources, and I want to be a driving change in that. I want to make a difference here.”
Florek studied family medicine, and said medical school was one of the hardest things she’s ever done, but it was worth it. For four years she worried whether her grades and extracurriculars would be enough, and whether she’d get a residency match.
“I think also the difficult part is growing to be a good leader, and cultivating that confidence in yourself to care for another human being, and taking on this new role in your life where you’re looked up to,” Florek said.