Megan Sue, Francesca Hernandez, Stephanie Young, and Danielle Wickman all have vastly different stories leading up to their Match. Everyone's story may be different but all paths align on Match Day to celebrate this momentous milestone.

Megan shares her results with Dr. Hall, Dean of Admissions

Stephanie grabs her envelope

Francesca and the group

Danielle shows off her Match letter

Megan Sue

Megan Sue

Megan Sue (Torrance), 25, knew she wanted to be a radiologist from the tender age of 6. That’s when her uncle, a radiology resident at the time, snuck her into the hospital reading room to see an ultrasound. “That TV isn’t working very well,” Sue told him, ‘but I see something moving in the middle.” Once he explained that she was watching her grandmother’s beating heart, Sue was hooked. She hopes to follow in her uncle’s footsteps and practice radiology.

Megan matched at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center in Radiology with a preliminary year at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center.

Francesca Hernandez

Francesca Hernandez

Francesca Hernandez (Portland), 30, is the daughter of Chinese and Vietnamese refugees who fled to the U.S. as boat people during the Vietnam War. Choosing to specialize in pediatrics came naturally to her. From the age of 7, she was expected to stay home after school and on weekends to rear her three younger siblings, enabling her parents to earn a living as a grocery clerk and manicurist. Her responsibilities far exceeded babysitting: she bathed and fed her brothers and sisters, changed diapers, helped with homework, and taught them to avoid drugs and detest racism. Now married, she is the first in her family to graduate from high school and to attend college and medical school.

Francesca matched at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center for Pediatrics.

Stephanie Young

Stephanie Young

Stephanie Young (Cupertino), 30, took an unforgettable six-month leave from medical school in 2014 to volunteer as a surgical intern in Cameroon, West Africa, during the Ebola outbreak. While Cameroon remained untouched by Ebola, the virus raged in neighboring Congo and Nigeria. Young, who previously earned a master’s in public health from Columbia, returned to UCLA with an invaluable perspective in global health. She aims to match in general surgery and focus on improving health care in the U.S. and overseas-- an interest she credits to the experiences of her parents, a Chinese refugee and Brazilian immigrant.

Stephanie matched at Kaiser Permanente-Los Angeles for General Surgery.

Danielle Wickman

Danielle Wickman

Danielle Wickman (San Diego), 27, worked two jobs in high school to help her single mom cover household expenses. She grew interested in medicine after devoting her teens to caring for her sick grandmother, who died from heart disease in hospice in 2011. Despite a high-school counselor bluntly telling her she “wasn’t meant for college,” Wickman thrived at UC Riverside. During medical school, she traveled to Malawi to research obstacles to HIV treatment for pregnant women. After earning a Howard Hughes Medical Institute fellowship, she left UCLA for a year to conduct HIV research in South Africa. In memory of her grandmother, she is pursuing a career in emergency medicine with an emphasis in critical and palliative care.

Danielle matched at the University of Southern California for Emergency Medicine.