EVMS medical school grads get residency posts

NORFOLK

Britney Spears, in various stages of career and dress, found out where she’d be a doctor Thursday.

So did Janet Jackson, Snoop Dogg, Ludwig van Beethoven and, of course, the Village People.

Yep, it was Match Day at Eastern Virginia Medical School. The day when graduating medical students across the country find out simultaneously where they will be doing their residencies and in what fields.

Typically, Match Day is celebrated in costume and with a healthy blowing off of steam from the four years of hard work that got the med students to this point.

EVMS’ celebration, where the students dressed up as music stars, also answered one other vital question: can doctors dance?

It depend on what you consider dancing, but students shimmied and gyrated their way to the stage when their names were called to get the sealed envelopes holding their futures. Some undertook break-dancing routines that looked like they oughta run straight away to their colleagues destined to become orthopedic surgeons.

Steven Lazernick and Jane Nosonchuk were eagerly waiting for their daughter, Sheryl Crow (aka Samara Lazernick) taking her turn among the more than 100 students.

“I’m very proud of her. She’s such a motivated individual. She runs 26.2-mile marathons, she teaches spin class, she does everything,” Steven said.

Oh, and in September, Samara, on her last day of an OB/GYN rotation, helped deliver her nephew at Sentara Norfolk General, Steven added. As did Jane, who further added that in April, Samara would be taking part in a fundraising bike ride across the country. It’s the Ride for World Health. Jane then gave the Web site address (www.rideforworldhealth.org).

Samara, hearing later all her parents had already said about her, smiled and said, “My glowing parents.”

But she could also add one other accomplishment. She’d be doing her OB/GYN residency at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, her first choice and not too far from her greatest fans.

“This is what I’ve been working so hard for,” Samara said, “and, finally, I get to do it.”

She and her classmates can expect more hard work, a lot of it, counseled Dr. Cyndi Torosky, a dermatologist in the last year of her residency at EVMS.

Torosky had her Match Day at EVMS in 2003. She said it’s the biggest day of medical school, bigger even than graduation. “It’s where you find out what you’re going to do for the rest of your life.”

Torosky said this year’s class can look forward to much hard work – more than in medical school – and at the same time less stress.

“Their future is a little more secure than it was last week.”

Nancy Young, (757) 446-2947, nancy.young@pilotonline.com