It’s a Match: Med students, newlyweds find out future

Med students and newlyweds Alexandra Ward and Craig Thomas eagerly awaited Match Day. (Photo: J. Daniel Escareño, UTHealth) 

Surrounded by hundreds of expectant doctors-to-be, Alexandra Ward and Craig Thomas clutched matching cream-colored envelopes, waiting for one of the most important moments of their lives. The newlyweds were minutes away from finding out whether they’d be together or hundreds of miles apart for the next several years.

“Craig was up very early, he couldn’t sleep,” said Ward, 28, who grew up in Bellaire.

Ward and Thomas joined more than 200 fellow med students in a packed courtyard Friday in front of the McGovern Medical School at the University of Texas Health Science Center for the school’s Match Day ceremony.

The newlyweds will both continue their medical training in Houston. Alexandra Ward will study at UTHouston and Craig Thomas will be at Baylor College of Medicine. (Photo: J. Daniel Escareño, UTHealth) 

Match Day is the medical world’s annual event where med students across the country find out where they’ll spend their residency. This year’s Match Day was the largest on record, with almost 44,000 applicants. At McGovern, proud parents snapped photos, classmates embraced and siblings cradled bouquets.

Ward, a McGovern student, and Thomas, 30, who studies at The University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, hoped that at long last they’d permanently live in the same city. That’s been the couple’s goal since they met in 2013, and over these past 11 months during the grueling Match process.

It started in May 2017, when Ward and Thomas began researching residency programs. Ward, the daughter of two Houston doctors – Phebe Chen and Mark Ward, a radiologist in private practice, and Director of the Pediatric Residency Program at Baylor College of Medicine, decided she wanted to go into psychiatry. Thomas chose to pursue internal medicine.

Alexandra Ward and Craig Thomas recently married at Westminster United Methodist Church followed by a reception at Brennan’s.

What followed were months of more than a dozen interviews each with hospitals across Texas and the Southern U.S. During the Match Day process, hospitals then rank their interviewees, and interviewees rank the facilities where they’ve interviewed. The process is coordinated by the National Resident Matching Program.

Ward and Thomas chose to do what’s known as “coupled matching,” where couples link their preferred schools. For example, Ward’s number one choice was linked to Thomas’ top choice. Both had to receive their top choice for it to be a match.

The couple spent long nights creating 40 possible hospital combinations. Their top choice would put them both in Houston. Choices further down the list would put Ward in San Antonio and Thomas in Austin, an hour and a half drive away. “We’re really hoping to stay here,” said Ward, ahead of the ceremony.

It was a hot Houston summer night when Ward and Thomas first met outside a jammed wrought iron gate leading into the apartment complex they both lived in. “I say he was stuck,” said Ward. “He says it was me.” The couple soon learned they both also worked as research assistants at MD Anderson and were both applying to medical school.

Alex and Craig's families proudly joined them on Match Day. (Pictured, from left) Dr. Christopher Randall Thomas, Craig Thomas, Alexandra Ward and Phebe Chen.  (Photo: J. Daniel Escareño, UTHealth) 

Ward ended up at med school in Houston, and Thomas in Galveston, where his family lives. His father, Christopher Randall Thomas, is a psychiatrist at University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston. “I’m so proud that Craig and Alex chose medicine as a calling, a career that I have found so rewarding and challenging,” said Dr. Thomas.

The couple spent two years dating long-distance. “We’d alternate weekends going to visit each other,” said Ward. It wasn’t easy.

“When we started dating, it was such a natural relationship,” said Ward. “We could take coffee breaks together. Then, we were busy at school and we were apart.”

During their third year and fourth years of med school, Thomas was able to do his rotation in Houston, and the couple moved in together. One summer day in 2016, they took a walk through Hermann Park. Thomas got down on one knee. “I was a little nervous,” he said, “but I kneeled down and I popped the question.”

They married less than two weeks ago at Westminster United Methodist Church, where Ward’s parents married 32 years ago. In her wedding dress pocket, Ward carried a blue and white handkerchief from her Chinese grandmother’s handkerchief collection. With family and friends from around the world, the couple feasted on gumbo and other Cajun delicacies at Brennan’s during the reception.

Shortly before noon on Friday, McGovern Med School officials gave the signal, prompting students to simultaneously rip open their envelopes. Thomas received special permission to open his letter in Houston; staff clipped the couple’s letters together.

Ward took a deep breath. Her eyes scanned the page. “I got UTHouston and he got Baylor, our number one choice!” She beamed, grinning ear-to-ear. For the next several years, the newlyweds will learn to care for patients down the road from each other.

“Phebe and I were thrilled and proud,” said Mark Ward. “Getting your first choice makes what will be a challenging journey through residency just a little bit easier.”

Thomas said, “It’s unbelievable.” Ward embraced him, tears pooling in her eyes. “You know, I had a feeling we would be staying here,” she said.