Medical students unseal their futures on Match Day

Minutes before 9 a.m. Pacific time, each student was handed a sealed red envelope with their destination inside. Their family, friends and mentors gathered around. Everyone counted down the final seconds. After a brief pause of rustling paper, shouts of elation and relief filled the room.

“This is just a surreal feeling,” said Jamasb Sayadi, who matched in neurosurgery at Stanford Medicine. He was surrounded by close friends and family, including his brother and father, and his uncle on video call.

The moment represented years of dedication and sacrifice, especially for his parents, he said, who immigrated from Iran in the aftermath of the 1979 revolution. He was inspired to go into neurosurgery after seeing his father’s transformation from deep brain stimulation for Parkinson’s disease, and after his mother’s death from glioblastoma in August.

Sayadi was grateful that he could continue working with his mentors at Stanford and stay close to his father and brother, who live in California. “It’s going to be the best possible outcome,” he said.

Grace Li, holding a large bouquet of flowers, learned she had matched in emergency medicine at Mass General Brigham, her first choice. Li said she was drawn to emergency medicine because it’s an opportunity to see patients from every walk of life and help them through enormously stressful moments.

Her entire family flew in from Texas, New York City and Boston to celebrate the first physician in the family. “I feel very, very lucky. Just being here on Match Day, surrounded by loved ones, is a dream come true,” she said. She thought about the journey ahead. “I’m going to need a winter coat.”