Amy Iarrobino and Erin Kane took two different paths to get to medical school, but they ended up on the same steps at the University of Central Florida College of Medicine on Friday, anxiously waiting to find out which residency program they would be going to.

It was "match day," when students at medical schools across the nation find out where they will be doing their residencies. Iarrobino and Kane, along with 72 other UCF College of Medicine seniors, got one step closer to their dream of becoming a doctor.

"Everything has felt like a step to get to this point, and I think it's probably the most nerve-racking," said Kane on Thursday before match day.

"It's not so much the anxiety-provoking kind of nervous, but knowing that I could make all these plans starting tomorrow. This is the next step."

Kane, now 31, was first an EMT/firefighter and later a floor manager at a casino in St. Louis before going to medical school.

This year's match was the largest on record, according to the National Resident Matching Program. Almost 17,000 seniors in allopathic medicine programs (M.D.) matched with a first-year residency program. More than half matched with their first choice.

At UCF College of Medicine, 74 of the 80 seniors matched with residency programs in a wide range of specialties from pediatrics to radiology and surgery, in locations ranging from Orlando Health and Florida Hospital to Johns Hopkins University, Harvard and Emory.

At Florida State University, which has a regional campus in Orlando, nearly 60 percent of the 113 students matched with a residency program in primary care.

On Friday, UCF senior medical students lined up on the steps of the medical school green in Lake Nona, in front of them small gold bags with an envelope inside, which was not to be opened until noon.

Their families and friends crowded the grass area, shooting photos and videos, forever remembering this day.

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UCF med students find out where they will do their residencies