Match Day: One Day and One Dramatic Year in the Lives of Three New Doctors

Each year on the third Thursday in March, more than fifteen thousand graduating medical students exult, despair, and endure Match Day: the result of a computer algorithm that assigns students to their hospital residencies in almost every field of medicine. The match determines the crucial first job as an intern, and ultimately shapes the rest of his—or, in increasing numbers, her—life.

Match Day follows three women from the anxious months of preparation before the match through the completi...