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Allentown resident Adriana Facchiano says being matched to a physician residency program at St. Luke’s University Health Network (SLUHN) is a dream come true.

The Lehigh Valley native, and fourth-year student at Temple/St. Luke’s School of Medicine, will begin her residency training in emergency medicine at St. Luke’s for the next three years, a specialty that draws on her passion for a fast-paced and challenging clinical setting with a varied mix of patient populations and disease processes. She looks forward to multi-tasking and using her deft diagnostic and hands-on skills as she takes care of the community that she has lived in all her life.

Facchiano is one of 17 Temple/St. Luke’s School of Medicine students who matched to a St. Luke’s University Health Network residency.

Adriana celebrates with her family on her match to her top choice of residency: Emergency Medicine - Bethlehem

Facchiano and her Temple/St. Luke’s peers excitedly attended the Match Day ceremony that is held at the Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University in Philadelphia. On that traditional day in medicine, they learned of their paths for advanced, post-medical school training after graduation.

Match Day is a national rite of passage for medical school students moving onto residency programs. A complex algorithm matches the students’ top choice of residencies with the programs’ top choice of students. This “match” news is conveyed to each student through an envelope that they opened at 12-noon. Post-graduate medical education can last from four to seven years, including residency and fellowship.

The Temple/St. Luke’s School of Medicine at St. Luke’s University Hospital in Fountain Hill is the Lehigh Valley’s first and only four-year medical school, where the region’s brightest young minds go to become doctors. By cultivating home-grown medical talent, St. Luke’s is helping the region to secure its health and well-being amid a worsening doctor shortage nationally.

“National Match Day is a pivotal and unforgettable milestone for every medical student across the country,” said Shaden Eldakar-Hein, MD. She is the Senior Associate Dean of Temple/St. Luke’s School of Medicine and Associate Professor, Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University, from which she graduated in 2007. “We are proud of the graduating class of 2023 and are certain they will make skilled and compassionate physicians, and any program is lucky to have them.”

Joseph Evans ranks attending Temple/St. Luke’s School of Medicine as “one of the best choices I’ve made in my life.”

The soon-to-graduate student from Western Pennsylvania had hoped the envelope he opened at Match Day would bring him back to St. Luke’s to continue his physician training in general surgery. After that, he aspires to pursue a fellowship in trauma surgery, staying in the area to take care of its community.

Joe Evans matches at St. Luke’s University Health Network, supported by his ecstatic girlfriend, Molly Breidenbaugh.

“St. Luke’s is where I know I’ll fit in the best as a resident and beyond,” Evans says, adding he and his girlfriend enjoy living in the Lehigh Valley for its outdoor opportunities, restaurants and cultural offerings.

“I’m hoping to stay here for the rest of my life,” says Evans.

His classmate, Alex Rizzo recalls that when he entered St. Luke’s Bethlehem hospital lobby for his medical school interview, “it felt like coming home. Everyone was smiling and happy.”

After nearly four years at the Temple/St. Luke’s School of Medicine, the New Jersey native matched at Rutgers -Cooperman Barnabas Medical Center to an OBGYN residency, an interest that was sparked during clinical rotations this year at St. Luke’s. He’s impressed by the patient care and educational opportunities here and the Network’s progressive approach to health care delivery.

Alex Rizzo gets ready for the long-awaited moment to open his Match Day letter

“I can’t say enough about St. Luke’s,” he adds. “They prepared me well.”

Juliet Panichella vows to be a “prophet of St. Luke’s” as she goes onto Brown University for a plastic surgery residency, a course of training the network plans to offer starting within the next two years. The native of Long Island calls both St. Luke’s University Health Network, where she volunteered during college at Lehigh University, and Temple/St. Luke’s School of Medicine, “wonderful. I’ve loved it here.”

Juliet Panichella celebrates her match to her top choice of residency: Plastic Surgery at Brown University!

Match Day this year fell on St. Patrick’s Day, a celebration of the Irish culture, all-things green and good luck. Facchiano and her Temple/St. Luke’s School of Medicine classmates thanked a little extra good fortune as their “matches” for residency training were revealed in the Match Day ceremony.

“What I’ve wanted for the past four years is to continue learning and working at St. Luke’s,” says Facchiano, who would become the first medical doctor in her large family; her grandmother was a nurse for 45 years, her brother is a veterinarian, and her aunt is a dentist.

“I’m confident I’ll receive excellent training in residency here, just as I did in medical school.”

For more information about Temple/St. Luke’s please see www.sluhn.org/som and for other graduate medical education programs at St. Luke’s University Health Network, please see www.sluhn.org/gme.

Temple/St. Luke’s School of Medicine
Class of 2023 Matched Programs

Anesthesiology
Montefiore Medical Center/Einstein
New York-Presbyterian Columbia University Medical Center

Diagnostic Radiology
Temple University Hospital

Emergency Medicine
St. Luke’s University Health Network – Anderson Campus
St. Luke’s University Health Network – Bethlehem Campus
Wellspan Health York Hospital

Family Medicine
St. Luke’s University Health Network – Bethlehem Campus
Providence St. Peter

Internal Medicine
St. Luke’s University Health Network – Bethlehem Campus
Mayo Clinic
Tufts Medical Center

General Surgery
St. Luke’s University Health Network
St. Joseph’s University Medical Center

Surgery- Preliminary Year
Northwell Health- South Shore

Neurology
Thomas Jefferson University

Obstetrics-Gynecology
St. Luke’s University Health Network
Rutgers-Cooperman Barnabas Medical Center

Orthopedic Surgery
St. Luke’s University Health Network

Plastics Surgery (Integrated)
Brown University, Rhode Island Hospital

Psychiatry
St. Luke’s University Health Network – Anderson Campus
St. Louis University

Radiation Oncology
Baylor College of Medicine

Transitional Year
St. Luke’s University Health Network – Anderson Campus
St. Luke’s University Health Network – Bethlehem Campus