Covista’s 2026 Combined First-Time Residency Attainment Rate: AUC and Ross Med Graduates Match

Excitement. Nerves. Even a few tears. Match Day 2026 brought the full scale of emotions to graduates of Covista’s American University of the Caribbean School of Medicine (AUC) and Ross University School of Medicine (RUSM). For them, the day represents years of hard work, persistence and drive. With a 97% combined first-time residency attainment rate* across the two universities, our 2026 graduates are taking the next step in their careers as physicians—and entering into a healthcare system that needs them urgently.

How Match Day works

Match Day 2026 is a nationwide event. The National Resident Matching Program (NRMP) simultaneously releases results to graduating medical students and residency programs across the country, pairing candidates with placements based on mutual preferences. From there, applicants and programs solidify their matches. Any applicant who is unmatched after Match Day can participate in the Supplemental Offer and Acceptance Program (SOAP) to secure their residencies.

This year, Covista’s residency attainment rate* includes 295 AUC graduates, and 475 Ross Med graduates—770 physicians who are ready to enter internal medicine, family medicine, emergency medicine and other specialties where the shortage of qualified providers is most acute.

Behind those numbers are remarkable people who have taken varied pathways to the profession.

Built for emergency medicine

Kendell O'Steen grew up in Keystone Heights, Florida, a small town where the nearest doctor was an hour away. She joined the military at 18, where she found structure, discipline, and a sense of purpose—and where she first realized she wanted to pursue a medical career. Years later, while juggling three jobs, monthly Reserve duty, and life as a single mother, she decided to go back to school to make that dream a reality. She attended her Ross Med interview at 1:30 a.m., while deployed in Afghanistan and dressed in her military uniform—and got accepted.

Her first clinical rotation made it clear that emergency medicine was where she belonged. Her approach centers on empathy and a holistic understanding of the patient’s needs. “I want my patients to understand that I am there, I am listening and I know there’s a bigger story than what they came in for today,” she said. “If I can’t fix it today, I can find somebody who can.” She applied exclusively to emergency medicine programs.

As she enters her residency program, O’Steen is coming full circle: she matched into emergency medicine at the University of Florida Shands Hospital—the hospital closest to her hometown.

A promise kept

Fadi Jamaleddin Ahmad, a 2026 AUC graduate, left Venezuela for the U.S. at 16. He didn’t speak English and arrived unfamiliar with much of American life. However, he knew one thing clearly: he wanted to become a doctor. In his first year as an undergraduate at the University of New Mexico, he began working at a nonprofit clinic and found his direction. “I fell in love with primary care because I got to help people in a way that felt complete,” he said. “Not just treating one problem and sending them away.”

He graduated with degrees in biology and psychology, then added a master’s in public health, all while working 20-hour weeks in labs and tutoring on the side.  He came to AUC to broaden his understanding of the communities he hoped to serve. In the weeks leading up to Match Day 2026, he received more than 30 residency interview invitations, an enviable number in a competitive field. He ultimately matched into family medicine at the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque—fulfilling the promise he made to himself when he first arrived in the U.S.

O’Steen and Ahmad are not exceptions. They represent the students Covista, America’s largest healthcare educator, was built to serve: driven, nontraditional and shaped by real-world experiences.

Going where America needs them

According to the Covista Care Capacity Monitor, 85% of healthcare executives from rural and less urban communities report difficulty filling open positions. Covista’s residency results show what addressing that need looks like: AUC graduates will be entering into 35 different states and territories; Ross Med graduates into 40. Our graduates are going where America needs them most.

Covista’s 2026 graduates are part of the answer to America’s healthcare workforce crisis. As Ahmad heads back to New Mexico and O’Steen walks into her first day at Shands, they join 770 AUC and Ross Med graduates doing the same. This is what progress looks like, one physician at a time.

*Percent of students attaining a 2026-27 residency position out of all graduates or expected graduates in 2025-26 who were active applicants in the 2026 NRMP match or who attained a residency position outside the NRMP match