Sue Pope looks back on more than 40 years of Match Day

As she’s done every year since 1970, Sue Pope will help coordinate today’s campus Match Day ceremony, which starts at 11 a.m. in the Sorrell Center’s Truhlsen Campus Events Center.

Top photo, Sue Pope in 1981 (Photo provided by John Schleicher, McGoogan Library of Medicine). Bottom photo, Sue Pope today.

Match Day is an annual event held at medical schools across the nation during which fourth-year medical students learn where they will conduct their residency training.

Pope’s official title is academic affairs program coordinator but she really is the defacto “den mother” for the College of Medicine as she makes sure all the students’ important paperwork and procedural activities are completed.

Match Day is concrete evidence for Pope and the students that their efforts have helped mold new physicians ready to take their talents into the health care workforce.

Below, Pope looks back on more than 40 years of Match Day.

What is your favorite part of Match Day?

Seeing the excitement on someone’s face when they open their envelope and actually find out where they will be going for residency. Then, of course, there are those moments when someone comes up to me and says, “Thanks Sue for all you have done.” I am grateful to know that, in some small part, I have helped this student to this point.

Match Day stream Watch UNMC’s Match Day ceremony online and read UNMC Today on Friday to see a list of students and their residency matches as well as photos from the ceremony. Photos also will be posted on UNMC’s Facebook page.

How has Match Day changed over the years?

Years ago spouses, families and friends were not included in the ceremony. Usually just the class was present and a few faculty and staff. Also, there was usually a champagne breakfast held prior to the start of the ceremony so everyone was, should I say, “very relaxed” when the ceremony began.

Classes seem to be a bit more somber and formal now. I sort of miss the unbridled excitement and screams of joy upon the opening of the envelope. I would love to see more emotion.

Tell us about your favorite Match Day memory.

The best memory was when the ceremony was held in the student lounge in the old Conkling Hall and I had borrowed a Santa Claus suit and handed out the envelopes as “Santa Sue.” I received more hugs that day than I have the whole time I’ve been here.