Student Drs. Christina Hardin and Ryan Taylor, surrounded by a large contingent of family and friends, sat quietly in a lecture hall inside the Campbell University Jerry M. Wallace School of Osteopathic Medicine (CUSOM).
They met in med school and, in a week or so, they’ll be married.
But this group was here for another reason. Hardin and Taylor each held a sealed white envelope. Soon, they would open it. But not yet. Like many others gathered in the large room in Levine Hall, they would have to wait.
Until the medical school dean, Dr. David Tolentino, told them it was time.
The envelopes contained a one-page note, their 2026 Match Results, and disclosed the name of the institution and program in which the new doctors will serve their respective residencies.
Match Day has become a universal event, held the third Friday each March, in this case March 20. To land a residency appointment, graduating medical students apply to multiple hospital systems, and earlier in the week they learned whether they had a match.
That match, however, was unknown until Friday’s ceremony.
The students — part of a graduating class of 151 — and their families together opened the envelopes. They pick up black markers and Campbell orange placards, which they wrote on to announce their next destinations.
Tolentino, overseeing his first Match Day as med school dean, welcomed students and their families, and he thanked the many CUSOM faculty and staff members who contributed to organizing and running the event.
“An event of this scale does not happen by accident,” Tolentino said. “Their mentorship and guidance have paved the way for the incredible results we are about to see today.”
Dr. Jerry M. Wallace, former Campbell president and for whom the med school is named, and Dr. Tiffany Lowe Clayton, vice-chair and assistant professor in the Department of Family Medicine, spoke as part of the Match Day presentation.
“Being at Campbell 55 years, and living to be 91 years of age, and seeing what I have just seen … it’s worth every day,” Wallace said. “I’m so proud of you, I’m so grateful to you. When I say ‘you,’ I’m talking about you and all the people who love you, near and far, who are so proud of you. … to be the healers of body and mind and spirit.”
Lowe Clayton reflected on the time she was the student doctors’ course director, remembering how they had so much to learn.
“Now, they’re going to become physicians, and they’re going to go out into the world and start to care for their patients,” Lowe Clayton said.
A celebratory moment, she said, but at the same time a humbling and sobering moment, too.
“To whom much is given, much is required, and that they really are going to have an opportunity to go out and change a patient’s life, mentally, spiritually and physically.”
She encouraged the new doctors to do just that, and to try to understand they now hold the power to change the world. “I’m so excited for them and excited for their futures and where they’re going to go,” she said.
Dr. James Cappola, interim assistant dean for Clinical Affairs, offered the details of the med school match results.
The new physicians will serve in 27 states, including 54 in North Carolina, with 28 percent entering specialties of need; for example, Pediatrics and Family Medicine. Sixty-two percent of the class will practice in the Southeast. Sixty percent of the graduating class will specialize in Primary Care, including 41 percent in Pediatrics and 34 percent in Family Medicine. Eighty percent will serve targeted specialties of need, such as Family Medicine, Internal Medicine, Pediatrics, Emergency Medicine and OB/GYN.
This Match Day process is a complex one, Tolentino said.
“But regardless of whether the name inside of that envelope was your first choice or a program that wasn’t even on your initial radar, I want you to know this — You’re exactly where you’re supposed to be.”
Nationwide, the 2026 Main Residency Match was the largest in the history of the National Resident Matching Program, with more than 53,000 applicants registered and more than 44,000 residency positions offered in over 6,800 program tracks across the U.S., the organization said on its website. Further, U.S. seniors studying osteopathic medicine achieved their highest Postgraduate Year match rate on record. “There were 8,503 active applicants, an increase of 111 over last year, with a PGY-1 match rate of 93.2 percent, an increase of 0.6 percent from 2025,” the group says.
Said Tolentino, “Your unique talents have led you to the specific community that you’re supposed to serve, and that means you must trust that journey that brought you to CUSOM, and trust the one that begins today.”
For Hardin and Taylor, that journey will begin in Omaha, Nebraska. Hardin, who will become a captain in the Air Force later this spring, is headed to Offutt Air Force Base, where she’ll practice Family Medicine. Taylor will serve his residency at nearby Clarkson Family Medicine.
And that’s appropriate.
CUSOM, Taylor said, felt just like family. As a student, Taylor for the past two years did clinical training at Campbell partner UNC Health Blue Ridge in Morganton. “I know they’re celebrating for us today, too, and we can’t wait to go back and celebrate with them,” Taylor said.
Hardin said she and Taylor met during their first year at med school but didn’t start dating until their second year.
She called her time at CUSOM “fantastic.”
“We absolutely love it,” Hardin said. “It’s been fantastic. All of the faculty who trained us and helped us and have been with us the whole time … we couldn’t have done it without them.”
Student Dr. Avery Eaton will practice Family Medicine at the UMass Chan Medical School in Worcester, Massachusetts. It was her first choice.
“Campbell was fantastic,” Eaton said. “I feel like I got an excellent education here. No complaints whatsoever.”
See a video about the event here.
