With four years of medical school nearly behind them, more than 200 excited students at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston Medical School found out on Match Day Friday where they will begin the next phase of their medical training.

Match Day is an annual event that occurs simultaneously across the country as students are matched with residencies with the aid of computer technology and the National Resident Matching Program. At UTHealth, students, friends and loved ones gathered Friday morning in Webber Plaza.

This is the moment weve all been waiting for, said Katherine Lusk, president of UTHealth Medical Schools Class of 2012.

The tight-knit class forged friendships during Hurricane Ike, which struck the Gulf Coast right before the students first big exam. Since then, together they have learned what it takes to be physicians dedicated to excellence in patient care.

In the months leading up to Match Day, the students interviewed with residency programs across the country. Anesthesiology, family medicine, internal medicine, pediatrics and general surgery are among some of the most popular areas of medicine that members of UTHealth Medical Schools Class of 2012 have selected for residency training. Many of them would like to stay in Texas for that training.

Our students are truly second to none and always do very well in the match, said Giuseppe N. Colasurdo, M.D., president ad interim of UTHealth and dean of the UTHealth Medical School.

Surrounded by family, friends and faculty, the students open envelopes to reveal the location of their residency. Will it be Houston? Will it be someplace else?

Here are stories from a few of the students who participated in this years match:

Lisa Osterhout, 29, had promising careers as a marketing executive and graphic artist, but she discovered that the volunteer work she was doing on weekends was far more rewarding that her weekdays promoting popular rock bands and creating 3D special effects. She was already contemplating a career move when, in 2004, she suddenly became sick. Two surgeries, encouragement from family and friends and news reports about the Indian Ocean tsunami ultimately led to her decision to become a physician committed to public service. In the summer of 2005, the Pearland native returned to The University of Texas at Austin, where she had previously earned a degree in marketing, to complete her pre-med coursework. Medicine allows me to integrate the creative aspects from my previous work while focusing on service, she said. Since enrolling at the UTHealth Medical School, she has served as executive director at the H.O.M.E.S. Clinic in Houston and founded a sustainable project to improve health in childrens homes in Kenya. She plans to do her graduate medical training in pediatrics.

When Irving Basanez arrived on the UTHealth campus in 2008 at the age of 19, he was the youngest student ever admitted to the Medical School. Basanez - who moved with his family from Veracruz, Mexico when he was 8 years old to live in Pharr, Texas - finished high school in three years and pushed himself to finish college in the same length of time. During his first year of medical school, he became interested in otolaryngology and decided he wanted to do his residency training in the ear, nose and throat (ENT) specialty. He also became interested in global health issues and participated in a number of mission trips, including one to Nigeria where he donated his own blood to save a woman from bleeding to death. Like his fellow classmates who are participating in Match Day, he doesnt yet know the location of his residency, but he does know where he would ultimately like to establish his medical practice. Ive had such great mentors here. I want to pay it forward and encourage and mentor students with an interest in ENT and global health, Basanez said. And I would like to come back and practice in the (Rio Grande) Valley. Now 22, Basanez jokes, Medical school has aged me.

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Envelope, please: UT Houston med students, future docs across U.S. learn their fate on Match Day