“Matching” medical students remember the kindness and skill of those who inspired them to be doctors

Published on Monday, March 24, 2025

By: Gary Pettus, gpettus@umc.edu

Photos By: Joe Ellis/UMMC Communications

Pleasant encounters with physicians have a way of perpetuating the species; the stories of three future doctors – Frances Lancaster, Jessica McKenzie and Wesley Zhang – are proof of that. 

The three medical students are among the many who decided to practice medicine for several reasons, not least of all because of the care or attention they received from doctors. 

They were among the 150-plus graduates of the medical school class of 2025 who announced the kind of doctor they plan to be during the University of Mississippi Medical Center’s Match Day event last week. 

At Hinds Community College in Raymond, during an annual ceremony often compared to the Academy Awards, the NFL Draft and the School of Medicine’s version of March Madness, each student took the stage to declare their specialty and where they will begin their practice as resident physicians.   

“It’s a big day, and it took four years to get here,” Lancaster said. “I have so much gratitude to the Lord for opening the door for me so to get into medical school. It feels a bit surreal, but gratitude is the biggest thing I feel.” 

That sentiment probably resonated thousands of times over during Friday’s 2025 Main Residency Match, a tradition for fourth-year medical students across the country and beyond. A total of 52,498 applicants registered for the 2025 Match, the largest in the program’s history. 

The matching process began in the fall when students applied to their preferred specialty programs, interviewed with them and ranked them, while program directors rated their preferences for applicants, a sorting procedure governed by a “matching algorithm.” 

At UMMC, there was a 100 percent match rate, reported Dr. Michael McMullan, associate dean for student affairs.

Among the students who will graduate in May, 71, or about 46 percent, are staying in Mississippi for at least their first year of residency. 

As for the others, Dr. LouAnn Woodward, vice chancellor for health affairs and dean of the School of Medicine, had a request. “Later on, when it’s time to decide where you want to spend the rest of your career, remember: We need you back here in Mississippi,” she said. 

“Don’t forget: You are a part of this medical school. All of you have made it better by being here. We are awfully proud of you.” 

The graduates represent 29 specialties and subspecialties, with half of the class choosing primary care, said Dr. Loretta Jackson-Williams, vice dean for medical education. Those who matched outside Mississippi did so in states ranging from Minnesota to Florida, from California To Virginia.  

Lancaster, a Jackson native, was one of 62 who matched at UMMC. 

The daughter and granddaughter of physicians, she was working as a nurse practitioner when she decided to go to medical school. 

“It was in 2019 when I broke my arm running a 5K at an airport in Atlanta,” she said. “The surgeons who took care of me were great, and I thought, ‘That’s really cool; maybe this is something I can do,’ and it kind of developed into a dream.” 

During her third year of medical school, she resolved to be a surgeon for the eyes, instead of the bones. 

“Ophthalmology is such a tangible way to help people,” she said, “and you get to know patients every day. I loved that about being a nurse practitioner, and I didn’t want to give that part up.” 

Zhang, on the other hand, will take on the bones. Having matched at the Henry Ford Health Science Center in Detroit, Michigan, he will train in orthopaedic surgery, a choice inspired largely by his medical student experience with the orthopaedics staff at UMMC. 

“Many of the surgeries are focused on restoring something so important to all of our health –  function and mobility,” he said. “I also enjoyed the people in orthopaedics – they work very hard to take care of patients, but also keep a good attitude through it all.”  

In his hometown of Madison, he grew up in the company of many doctors, including those in his church. 

“I was impressed with how much they cared for others, and not just as doctors, but as people,” Zhang said. “I gravitated toward them.”  

A kinship with science is in his DNA. Although he will be the first physician in his family, his mom, Dr. Zhen Zhang, is an assistant professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at Jackson State University; his dad, Dr. Lei Zhang, is a professor and associate dean for research and scholarship in the UMMC School of Nursing. Together, father and son have even worked on a couple of research projects. 

“I had considered other professions,” Zhang said, “but I kept coming back to medicine. I saw the way the doctors were with people, and that was really formative for me. They were kind, and when they listened to you, it was different from the way other people listened; they seemed invested in you.” 

In contrast with Zhang and Lancaster, McKenzie and medicine got off on the wrong foot. 

Growing up in Collinsville, she was hospitalized several times as a young child because of  respiratory illnesses and complications from chicken pox. “Getting stuck with a needle every morning in the hospital was a traumatic experience,” she said.  

“My mom has told me that I would scream every time I saw doctors.” Then, one day, a doctor walked into her room with a teddy bear. 

“I didn’t scream any more, not with him,” she said. “This was in Meridian, at Riley Hospital [now part of Anderson Regional Medical Center]; all the health care staff there were kind and generous to my family.” 

That experience is one of the reasons McKenzie decided to become a doctor. Years later, after her maternal grandmother’s fatal encounter with breast cancer, she thought oncology would be her field.  

But her experience with multiple hospitalizations, and needles, stuck with her, and she settled on caring for the youngest patients – which she will do as a resident pediatrician at the Louisiana State University-New Orleans.   

Lancaster, McKenzie, Zhang and their classmates have at least another four or five years of training ahead of them. But Match Day was the time to acknowledge how much they had already accomplished and overcome during some of the most difficult years of their life. 

“My first semester was a doozy and I did not like it,” said Lancaster, who was pregnant with her first child at the time and is expecting her second in June.  

“But I got through because of my husband, Jonathan, my family and my friends.  

“And I’m so grateful for getting the chance to go back to school as a non-traditional student, knowing it was not too late for me; I’m just so glad I did it.” 

Zhang also had friends and family, including his church family, behind him. “The weekly rhythm of being in church was helpful, and so were those homecooked meals from my mom,” he said. 

“Having all those things meant I wasn’t always locked into my studies during medical school. They made me feel like a whole person.” 

For McKenzie, “all of medical school was difficult,” she said. “Some of my family members died during those years. But any time I had a bad day, I remembered that I had been taught by my parents that I could do anything I put my mind to, and to keep pushing through. 

“I realize those setbacks are what made this moment so happy for me. That, and knowing that one day my story may help others achieve even more than I’ve achieved.”