The work has been done and the list has been delivered. Now, the UNMC Department of Psychiatry Residency team waits to see who will match with their program.
Match Day 2021 takes place on Friday, March 19th. The results will be released at 11AM Central. On that day, the residency program will more than double, going from four residents to ten. After a successful first year, the residency program received additional financial support from the VA and approval from the UNMC GME office to go from four residents a year to five. They will add a second-year transfer resident who will start later this summer.
“We successfully acquired more funding support from the VA to increase our residency size,” said Daniel Gih, MD, Department of Psychiatry Education Director. “It was important to the people that helped lay the groundwork of our new residency program to expand the number of residents we train. As the flagship and state-supported medical school, we have a duty to help train more psychiatrists who will hopefully stay in Nebraska or the region following their graduation from us. We are an underserved state for behavioral health, and we need to replace a retiring workforce. This upcoming summer, Dr. Zachary Rupp, who is currently in a family medicine residency program will join our inaugural intern class, and we plan to match five new interns on Match Day in March.”
In July 2020, UNMC welcomed new residents Dr. Michaelyn Everhart, Dr. Matthew Kelly, Dr. Andi Ngo and Dr. Emily Royer. Dr. Ngo, who is also a trained pharmacist, attended the University of Hawaii John A. Burns School of Medicine while Dr. Everhart attended the University of Kansas School of Medicine. Both Dr. Kelly and Dr. Royer are graduates of UNMC. Dr. Claudia Moore started a one-year addiction medicine fellowship after working as an emergency medicine physician for the last 14 years at Nebraska Medicine.
Dr. Gih said the foursome has done an amazing job as the inaugural class.
“Last year, we were very fortunate as a new program to match a class that came from the top half of our list,” he said. “However, we have a shared understanding that we cannot simply rely on last year’s outcome and become complacent. We have implemented a more applicant-friendly interview schedule with breaks immediately before interviews, updated our welcome orientation presentation to focus on the near and intermediate goals for the residency, and responded more accurately about the day-to-day activities in the residency since we have officially opened this past July. The evaluation and ranking process has been refined, and many colleagues representing different disciplines within the department participate in interviews.”
The 2020 class was recruited with in-person interviews and tours of the UNMC campus and the city of Omaha. They were taken out to dinner and sat face to face with several leaders in the department. Recruitment of the incoming group was entirely different, due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“With COVID, it was a huge disappointment we were not able to meet people in person,” Dr. Gih said. “Safety was important to our institution and the national organizations overseeing medical education. We encouraged our interviewers to talk about their personal experiences with Omaha and what may surprise people unfamiliar with our city. We also did four major virtual residency fairs that we hope increased the appeal of our program and expanded our applicant pool. Not being able to show off PES and our other facilities were major setbacks under COVID.”
Jeana Benton, MD, Co-Director of the Department of Psychiatry Residency Program, said she was impressed by the applicants for the 2021 class.
“Although the recruitment process was significantly changed by COVID this year, our interview season went extremely well,” Dr. Benton said. “We received 577 applications for our five interns spots and one transfer spot, and we interviewed 66 candidates. The overall quality of our applicant pool was outstanding. We’re anxiously awaiting Match Day and are excited to welcome what we believe will be a fantastic incoming residency class.”