BUIES CREEK - Along with 66 other Campbell University medical students, Rachel Cutlip received notice Monday on where she's going to be doing her residency training in emergency medicine.

The 25-year-old student from southern Maryland will be furthering her medical education at Inspira Medical Center Vineland in Vineland, New Jersey.

"I'm from the country, and it's very rural," Cutlip said, "and I love Vineland."

She plans to pursue a career in the area of ultrasound, which, as she said, can be used for many things besides pregnancies.

Once Cutlip completes her residency at Inspira, the red-haired coed hopes to work in a hospital in a distinctly rural setting.

"This is a culmination of four years of hard work," Cutlip said. "This is where you find out what specialty you're going to be a physician in."

Match Day 2017 arrived Monday at the Jerry M. Wallace School of Osteopathic Medicine, marking a significant achievement for the university and its inaugural class of medical students.

For the celebratory social, many of the students from this first class of 156 returned to campus from the five regional clinical campuses throughout the state, where they have completed their third and fourth years of medical school in clinical rotations.

"I asked the good Lord to let me live to see this day, and I'm thankful for it," Campbell President Jerry M. Wallace told the roughly 100 students, family members and staff who had gathered. "I want to live a little longer so I can have a Campbell physician become my physician."

Dr. John Kauffman Jr., the dean of the medical school, started out with his congratulations in the upstairs lecture hall of the School of Osteopathic Medicine.

Match Day traditionally ranks among the most exciting days of the medical school experience.

"This is another really big day at the creek," Kauffman said. "Another milestone on your journey to becoming a physician. Your hard work and dedication has led you to this point. But your journey is really only about half over. You've got another three to five years ahead of you, but how exciting."

Once they graduate in May, the students become student doctors.

Once they begin residency training at their respective medical facilities across the United States, they morph into resident physicians.

"Medical school - you learn so much," 27-year-old Brooke Williams of Winston-Salem said. "Residency is your bread and butter, and that's when you really develop as a physician."

Williams learned Monday that her long and arduous journey to become a doctor in the area of internal medicine will continue at Franciscan St. James Health - Olympia Fields, just outside of Chicago.

Williams had been close with her mother's sister, Cassandra Jones, who died from sickle cell disease when Brooke was in the eighth grade.

"I promised I would go into the field of medicine," she said. "Since the eighth grade, I've always said I wanted to go to med school."

Besides the 67 medical students who were matched into residencies on Monday, 10 students learned in December where they were going through a military residency match. The military match takes place first.

As for the remaining students from this inaugural Campbell medical school class, they will find out their places of residency over the next month or so. March 17 looms as the next big Match Day.

Campbell's School of Osteopathic Medicine opened in August 2013. From the get-go, the mission of the medical school at the Baptist-affiliated university in Buies Creek has been to train its students in a Christian environment to care for rural and underserved populations in North Carolina and beyond.

During his remarks, Wallace spoke of how, four years ago, the school had become the first school of medicine in the state in more than 35 years.

"I believe the best is yet to be, for you and for the people you will serve, in bringing healthcare - C-A-R-E - not bringing commodity care, to the people of this nation," he said. "And we certainly do need it."

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Match Day arrives for medical students at Campbell University - Fayetteville Observer