Match Day Makes Dreams Come True at Texas Tech Health El Paso

EL PASO, Texas – The waiting was the hardest part for the 114 students from the Foster School of Medicine’s class of 2024.

On national residency Match Day, Friday, March 15, the students opened their envelopes at precisely 10 a.m. to find out where they will spend the next phase of their medical training.

Of the 114 Foster School of Medicine students who matched on Friday, 10 matched with residencies in El Paso. Of those who matched in El Paso, nine matched with residencies at Texas Tech Health El Paso and one matched at William Beaumont Army Medical Center.

Match Day is an exciting milestone for graduating medical students and their families nationwide. It comes after students have spent the past six months applying to residencies, interviewing and deciding the order in which to rank programs they hope to be matched to.

Family members, friends, and members of the university’s President’s Development Council, who’ve been instrumental in supporting these students throughout their academic journey, were also present at the Match Day ceremony, held in the Medical Sciences Building II auditorium on campus.

Alyssa Downey, who did her undergraduate work at the University of Texas at El Paso and is a graduate of Silva Health Magnet School across the street from the Foster School of Medicine, expressed her profound gratitude upon discovering her match to the emergency medicine residency program at Texas Tech Health El Paso.

“I’m staying here for my residency because I have all my family here,” she said. “I have a huge support system, which is important for your residency.”

For Downey, having the medical school so close to her high school meant seeing role models for her to follow.

“It meant the world to me having doctors who look like me right across the street,” Downey said. “Just having a medical school here in our Borderplex, to learn how to care for patients and learning about what’s important on the U.S.-Mexico border was crucial.”

Her aspiration to continue serving the local community underscores the profound impact of her upbringing and education in our Borderplex. Downey’s journey epitomizes the transformative power of perseverance and the fulfillment found in pursuing unexpected dreams.

“I’m just so thankful to be here,” she said. “Never in my wildest dreams did I think I’d be an emergency medicine physician. If you were to tell 12-year-old Alyssa I’d be doing this, I’d have thought you were crazy. It’s such a blessing to be able to do this.”

Texas Tech Health El Paso offers 22 residency and fellowship programs throughout El Paso with openings for more than 300 talented medical residents from our Borderplex and across the nation. About 10% of Foster School of Medicine graduates match to Texas Tech Health El Paso each year, aligning with the university’s mission to grow our own future generation of physicians. Residency programs currently offered include emergency medicine, family medicine, internal medicine, OB-GYN, neurology, pediatrics, psychiatry, radiology, surgery, orthopaedic surgery and pathology.

The class of 2024 started their medical education journey as the Foster School of Medicine wrapped up its months-long 10-year anniversary celebration in early 2020 at A Red Tie Affair for a White Coat Occasion, where every dollar raised from our generous community supported these scholarships. Among those who embarked on this journey that fall were seven recipients of the 10-year Foster School of Medicine scholarships, all of whom matched on Friday.

El Pasoan Mariah Perkins did her undergraduate work at Baylor University and attended Montwood High School. She matched at the University of Tennessee Health Sciences Center in Memphis where she will be in the general surgery residency program.

Perkins described the first year of medical school in 2020 as “kind of rough” because of how the COVID-19 pandemic changed learning and included remote classes at the time and not being able to forge friendships in person.

“I think it made us better. We became more resilient because of it,” Perkins said.

Perkins was one of the recipients of the Foster School of Medicine 10-year anniversary scholarships and it had a huge impact on her life.

“Getting that 10-year anniversary scholarship really changed things for me,” Perkins said. “It gave me a new perspective; it gave me the invigoration to really try my hardest in school. And it’s paying off because I’m here at Match Day.”

She’s looking forward to the challenge of residency.

“I know it’s going to be grueling, but this is something that I’m super passionate about and I couldn’t see myself doing anything else,” Perkins said. “It’s about being there for someone in their most vulnerable state.”

Past Foster School of Medicine graduates have matched to residency programs at institutions nationwide, including The Johns Hopkins Hospital, George Washington University, Baylor University, New York University, Mayo Clinic, Barnes-Jewish Hospital and Vanderbilt University Medical Center. Texas Tech Health El Paso’s goal is that the students who matched to these renowned institutions bring their expertise back to the Borderplex once they complete training.

The Foster School of Medicine’s Mission

The Foster School of Medicine was established to reduce health disparities in our region by educating culturally competent physicians. In 2008, prior to the opening of the Foster School of Medicine, El Paso County’s average number of physicians per 100,000 people was 75% less than the national average and 37% less than the state average. Today, that physician shortage has been reduced to 60% when compared nationwide and 28% Texas-wide.

The Foster School of Medicine features a medical Spanish requirement which helps students provide culturally competent care during medical school and throughout their careers. It was one of the first medical schools in the U.S. to integrate medical Spanish into its curriculum.

Students at the Foster School of Medicine receive clinical experience within the first year of the curriculum. This is a nontraditional approach among most U.S. medical schools, where students typically begin clinical rotations during the third and fourth years of their medical education.

About Texas Tech Health El Paso

Texas Tech Health El Paso is the only health sciences center on the U.S.-Mexico border and serves 108 counties in West Texas that have been historically underserved. It’s a designated Title V Hispanic-Serving Institution, preparing the next generation of health care heroes, 48% of whom identify as Hispanic and are often first-generation students.

Established as an independent university in 2013, Texas Tech Health El Paso is a proudly diverse and uniquely innovative destination for education and research.

With a mission of eliminating health care barriers and creating life-changing educational opportunities for Borderplex residents, Texas Tech Health El Paso has graduated over 2,400 doctors, nurses and researchers over the past decade, and will add dentists to its alumni beginning in 2025. For more information, visit ttuhscepimpact.org.