On March 21, The Warren Alpert Medical School celebrated Match Day with its usual fanfare. Family, friends, and classmates experienced everything from anticipation to high fives to happy tears. To mark this amazing milestone, the Brown Medical Annual Fund (BMAF) hosted its second annual 24-hour Match Day Challenge, and generations of alumni, parents, and friends joined together in giving over $200,000 to support the medical school experience.
Twenty-five years after her own Match Day, Maitri R. Patel ’96 MD’00 joined the challenge to commemorate the achievements of the MD Class of 2025, and to reflect upon her upcoming 25th Medical School Reunion.
Patel fondly recalls the understated nature of her own Match Day—just their class of around 70 students gathered in the mailroom, eagerly tearing open their envelopes. “It was all very low-key, but it was high emotion,” she says. “We all were seeing the fruits of our considerable labor in actual black-and-white terms. Those envelopes were our tickets to fly with the wings Brown helped us grow.”
Patel is co-founder, chief medical officer, and a psychiatrist at Progressive Therapeutics, a child, adolescent, and adult outpatient psychiatric practice in Massachusetts. She says she draws on both her undergraduate and medical school education to build deeper connections with her patients, integrating factual health information with compassion for their respective experiences.
“As an English concentrator, I learned how to listen for the emotions and truth in and between the words, and in medical school, I learned the right questions to ask,” she says. “Truly understanding the person, finding common goals, and collaborating on solutions is a powerful formula for achieving better health for patients, and I am grateful for my Brown education that helped me develop those crucial skills and perspectives.”
Joining her in this year’s Match Day Challenge were Patel’s parents, Rajnikant C. Patel, MD, P’96MD’00, and Dipakben R. Patel P’96MD’00. At first, the couple was hesitant about their daughter’s decision to pursue medicine; 25 years later, having witnessed her invaluable contributions to the field of psychiatry, they rejoiced in the opportunity to double the impact of their gift. “My parents are proud of me for choosing a path of passion over practicality,” Patel says, “and they are thrilled to support similar, ideal-driven doctors of the future.”
As the MD Class of 2025 embarks on the next chapter of their medical education and Patel prepares to return for her upcoming reunion, the lasting impact of her education is clear.
“Brown taught me how to think, how to ask questions, and how to appreciate facts and opinions in the world,” she says. “Medicine is not an easy path, though it is straightforward. Students should have resources, access, and opportunities to become the best doctors and human beings they can be.”
