Annual Publication 2025 FINAL 05292025 accessible - Flipbook - Page 60
CHARTER CLASS GRAD RETURNS
AFTER STANFORD RESIDENCY
BY PAUL JONCICH
T
he weeks leading up to Match Day 2021 were
nervous times for medical students at the Kirk
Kerkorian School of Medicine at UNLV. As one of
the newest medical schools in the country, it had
yet to conduct its 昀椀rst Match Day or graduate its
昀椀rst class, and some students were concerned
that residency programs, particularly the more prestigious ones,
might view UNLV medical students as unproven commodities.
The moment of truth came a few minutes after nine o’clock
on March 19, 2021, when members of the charter class began
frantically searching through their personalized deck of playing
cards that held their match results. As they began learning
where they matched, feelings of doubt or inadequacy suddenly
disappeared.
Indeed, the results of the school’s very 昀椀rst Match Day were
impressive. Not only did every student match to a residency
program, but many of them landed at their 昀椀rst choice programs
— and remarkably, a handful matched at some of the most
prestigious institutions in the country, including the University of
Pennsylvania, Johns Hopkins, Stanford, Yale, and Tufts.
To school leadership and faculty, it was con昀椀rmation of the
new school’s high-quality teaching, curriculum, and clinical
experiences. Additionally, it felt like vindication that the 60
students chosen to join the charter class, virtually all of them from
Nevada, who took a chance by attending a brand new medical
school, not only made the right decision, but had the right stuff.
Now, it should be noted that by design, the school received
signi昀椀cant help attracting Nevada’s best and brightest.
Philanthropic donors provided full-tuition scholarships for every
student in the charter class. Leading the group of donors was
the Engelstad Foundation, which generously provided dozens
of student scholarships. One of the students happy to receive a
scholarship was a young woman from North Las Vegas named
Diana Peña whose family moved from Mexico shortly before she
was born.
Quiet and unassuming, Diana Peña, MD, is one of 昀椀ve children from
a tight-knit family. She graduated from Cheyenne High School and
UNLV and is a 昀椀rst-generation college student. Her father, a long-
60 KIRK KERKORIAN SCHOOL OF MEDICINE AT UNLV
haul truck driver who did the Las Vegas to Los Angeles route 昀椀ve
times a week, taught his children that education and hard work
will eventually pay off.
Well, Dr. Peña worked hard, very hard, through four years of
medical school, and as she sat there on Match Day waiting to
see where she would begin her career as a physician, she couldn’t
help but wonder if Stanford, her top choice for residency, even
took her seriously. “I didn’t know how programs were going to
view me being from a brand new school that really didn’t have
a reputation for the kind of students they graduate,” Dr. Peña
recalled. “So I was worried for sure about that.”
Turns out Stanford did take her seriously! So much so, they
wanted her as a pediatric resident physician. The news brought
cheers and hugs from Dr. Peña’s family – but she also knew that
living away from home for the 昀椀rst time would be di昀케cult. Sweet
comfort came a few minutes later when she learned that one of
her classmates, Diane Han, MD, also matched to Stanford.
“We were both thrilled to be joining one of the most respected
residency programs in the country,” Dr. Peña said. “I knew going
in that living in the Bay Area was going to be expensive, but I still
wanted to be at Stanford.”
Resident physicians are notoriously underpaid, but Drs. Peña
and Han made it work, taking on roommates and sharing an
apartment for a time, sometimes seeing each other only while
passing between shifts.
Working alongside residents from the nation’s more established
medical schools, Dr. Peña says she never felt at a disadvantage. “I
learned from working with residents from other med schools that
we all had strengths and weaknesses. There were some areas
that I would have liked to have been stronger, but I didn’t feel it
was because I was from a brand new medical school.”
The work at Stanford wasn’t easy. At 昀椀rst, Dr. Peña struggled
with the high volume of patients. “My experience was rotating in
pediatrics at UMC [University Medical Center] and the number of
patients that medical students typically see is lower. The number
of pediatric patients I was exposed to at Stanford … it was a bit
overwhelming,” Dr. Peña says. “There were times that I wondered
