Renaissance School of Medicine Students Match to Their Futures
130 graduates are set to begin their residency training in NYS and nationwide
Mike Sova is a fingerstyle guitarist who has played professionally and started the Music in Medicine Club in the Renaissance School of Medicine (RSOM) at Stony Brook University. Alaba Danagogo came from Nigeria to the United States on a full scholarship to Syracuse University and ran creative writing workshops at RSOM that teach skills in anti-racism.
Both Sova and Danagogo will soon embark on new journeys as physicians, just two of the stories of the 130 RSOM graduating students who matched to residency programs nationwide at RSOM’s Match Day celebration March 21 in the Bauman Center at Stony Brook University.
Match Days are held each year simultaneously at medical schools nationwide; they are celebratory events when students learn of their residency training assignments. RSOM’s 2025 Match Day included many cheers, smiles, hugs and happiness, as the students, collectively, matched to more than 20 specialties in New York and 17 other states. Fifty-five percent will be staying in New York State; 14 percent of the group will remain at Stony Brook Medicine for their residency training.
Most residency programs will begin on or around July 1, 2025.
In addition to the Stony Brook Medicine placements, the RSOM students will begin their careers at other leading hospitals and academic medical centers regionally and around the country. Examples include the University of California Irvine Medical Center, Stanford Health Care, Brown University, Yale University School of Medicine and Montefiore Medical Center/Einstein in New York City.
The top specialties students matched to include internal medicine (26), anesthesiology (15), psychiatry (11) and diagnostic radiology (10).
“We are delighted that 27 percent of our students matched to primary care specialties, helping to address a critical community need,” said Peter Igarashi, MD, Knapp Dean of the RSOM. “In addition to our students’ exceptional match, I am also incredibly proud that all 158 residency positions offered at Stony Brook Medicine were filled. This result underscores the excellence of our programs and dedication of our faculty, staff and learners to graduate medical education.”
Administered by the National Resident Matching Program (NRMP), this year more than 40,000 positions were filled — another record for the NRMP’s more than 70-year history.
For Sova, music inspires him in life and in healing. He also overcame a potentially dangerous abnormality in the brain called a Chiari malformation as a child. He had two surgeries during his teen years to cure the condition, which inspired him further into pursuing medicine. Like many of his classmates, Sova matched to internal medicine, and he will be practicing at Massachusetts General Hospital.
Danagogo is one of five students matching to a physical medicine and rehabilitation residency. She will have a year of transitional training and then begin PM&R work at Montefiore Medical Center/Einstein.
She won a scholarship given only once every four years by Syracuse University to students accepted to medical school. The funds from that award and support from her family enabled her to attend medical school. At Stony Brook, she joined the combined MD/MA program to explore the intersection between medicine, humanities and advocacy work.
Danagogo’s passion led her to design and execute the Writing Away Racism Project (WARP), a series of creative writing workshops that teach skills in anti-racism. The RSOM is adopting her program and will incorporate aspects of it into its curriculum.
Danagogo, Sova and all the matching RSOM students are important as part of the next generation of physicians. The need for more physicians to care for our population remains, and it will likely grow. In an age of globalization and threats of new diseases, medicine will meet that with powerful new diagnostic technologies, AI and the emergence of telemedicine, giving physicians the capacity to expand their capabilities to diagnose, treat and heal patients.
