At OUWB, medical education is more than a curriculum.
It’s where five cousins find a common calling, where students are challenged by the ethical weight of history during the Holocaust, and where humanism is formally honored at signature events.
This ethos carries from the White Coat Ceremony through Match Day, and as one class’s commencement paves the way for another’s beginning, all supported by a community investing in the next generation of compassionate physicians.
These topics and more comprise the list of OUWB’s top stories from 2025, according to readership statistics.
During the time of year when many reflect on the previous 365 days, we invite you to revisit those stories below as we prepare for what promises to be an exciting 2026.
Members of the OUWB Class of 2025 learned in March where they would first be physicians, successfully matching at Johns Hopkins University, University of Massachusetts, and more than 20 other programs across the U.S.
The fourth-year medical students participated in the National Resident Matching Program (NRMP), the annual event that reveals where most graduating medical students will begin residency training. About 47,000 medical students from across the U.S. participated, according to the NRMP.
Those who matched celebrated the moment at Oakland University’s Oakland Center, where, at noon, they ripped open envelopes showing where they matched.
Five students from the OUWB Class of 2025 matched early in February in the specialties of urology and ophthalmology.
Emelie-jo Nappo, Garrett Peters, Renee Ringler, and Corey Shafer matched in urology. Suhani Gupta matched in ophthalmology.
Early matches apply to specialties not affiliated with the National Resident Matching Program (NRMP), which annually holds its Match Day the third Friday in March. (The military match is also held early, in December.)
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| From left, Alison Thomas, M.D., OUWB '20, Jackie Thomas, M1, Christina Thomas, M2, Julianne Thomas, M1, and Jacob Thomas, M1. |
For one group of past, current, and future medical students at OUWB, it’s definitely safe to say that the school is a family affair.
Cousins Jackie, Julianne, and Jacob Thomas officially began attending OUWB this year as members of the Class of 2029, joining their fourth cousin, Christina Thomas, who started her second year of medical school.
And all four followed in the footsteps of a fifth cousin: Alison Thomas, M.D., OUWB ’20, a practicing OB-GYN physician.
OUWB’s Class of 2029 took center stage at its White Coat Ceremony on Aug. 8, marking the beginning of their medical school journey.
About 1,000 people watched the ceremony live and online.
OUWB made its final pitch in mid-April to students admitted to medical school in 2025.
Nearly 100 attended the two-day event called Second Look, many from southeast Michigan and the Midwest region, while others travelled across the country.
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The 2025 cohort from OUWB that participated
in the Study Trip to Auschwitz. |
Nineteen medical students from OUWB spent a week in June in Poland studying the Holocaust and medicine — with the “enormity and the intensity” of the experience leaving a profound impact on the future physicians.
The OUWB Class of 2025’s commencement was held May 8, as a celebration of the past four years coupled with excitement for the future took center stage.
The class was the 11th to complete their medical education at OUWB since 2015.
Six first-year medical students at OUWB were named scholarship recipients from the Corewell Health Foundation and the Duane Mezwa, M.D., Oakland University William Beaumont School of Medicine Scholarship.
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| Nineteen OUWB medical students were inducted into the Gold Humanism Honor Society (GHHS). |
The DNA upon which OUWB is built — humanism — was celebrated at the 2025 Faircloth Evening of Medical Humanism held March 20.
Nineteen OUWB medical students and six residents from Corewell Health William Beaumont University Hospital were inducted into the Gold Humanism Honor Society (GHHS).
A new endowment to support scholarships and research at OUWB was established by the medical school’s dean.
The Richard J. Carpenter Memorial Fund was created by Christopher Carpenter, M.D., Stephan Sharf Dean, OUWB, in honor of his brother who passed away in 2010.
"First and foremost, my goal was to honor Rich in a way that truly mattered," said Carpenter. "I couldn’t think of a better way to do that than by supporting the education of medical students who I believe will embody the qualities of the doctors who cared for my brother — compassionate, skilled in diagnosis, and unwavering in their commitment to providing exceptional care."
For more information, contact Andrew Dietderich, senior marketing specialist, OUWB, at [email protected].
To request an interview, visit the OUWB Communications & Marketing webpage.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
