Anticipation reverberated from a crowd of more than 160 fourth-year medical students at the University of Colorado School of Medicine on March 21 as they counted down the seconds until they could open the envelopes in their hands. While small in size, each envelope held big, life-changing news: the residency program the student will go to after graduation, marking the next chapter in their journey to becoming physicians. The day, known as Match Day, is an annual event where medical students across the country simultaneously learn the residency program they have “matched” into.
For Cathy Bradley, collaboration embodied an integral part of her first major leadership position. As a department chair tasked with setting up a new department at Virginia Commonwealth University, she quickly realized she needed to build connections with other university departments to ensure her incoming faculty would have collaborators and mentors, and form productive teams.
