Rooted in Service: Creighton medical students prepare for Match Day
For Laura Cogua and Caroline Lewis, the path to medicine was shaped by the communities that formed them.
Laura Cogua was born in Bogotá, Colombia, and moved to Nebraska as a child. A Creighton chemistry graduate, she chose to attend medical school at Creighton’s Phoenix campus to serve a more diverse patient population.
Witnessing language barriers and limited access to healthcare inspired her early on.
“I volunteered as a clinical interpreter and was inspired by doctors who were able to make a difference in people’s health and quality of life,” she says. “I wanted to follow their same path.”
Throughout medical school, Cogua has served as a Spanish clinical interpreter and diabetes educator, volunteered at community health centers and immigration centers and administered vaccines at a Vietnamese church. Those experiences shaped the kind of physician she hopes to become.
She hopes to match into general surgery and ultimately practice in a hospital that serves underserved populations while also establishing volunteer clinics locally and abroad.
Originally from McLean, Virginia, Caroline Lewis studied chemical engineering at the University of Notre Dame, where she discovered her love of problem-solving. But her path shifted during a service gap year at Christ House, a medical respite center for men who are unhoused in Washington, D.C.
“That year showed me the value of community and belonging in disease management and healing,” Lewis says. “It is a privilege to be part of a patient’s team.”
Drawn to Creighton’s Jesuit, service-oriented mission, Lewis found a community united in cura personalis, care for the whole person. As a community service chair for her class, she has helped organize volunteer opportunities throughout Omaha, reminding classmates of their shared purpose.
“What drew most of us to medicine was service,” she says.
She hopes to match into internal medicine, pursue primary care and further specialize in geriatrics.
“I seek longitudinal relationships with patients and their families and want to be able to meet the unique needs of older adults,” she says.
She also hopes to remain in Nebraska, where she has felt welcomed by the community and prepared to deliver compassionate care.
For Cogua and Lewis, service has been formative. They are two examples of the many Creighton medical students whose diverse experiences and commitment to others shape the physicians they are becoming.
At Creighton School of Medicine, formation extends beyond clinical skill. Students are challenged to reflect deeply, lead with compassion and embrace medicine as a vocation rooted in cura personalis. Here, medicine is understood not simply as a career, but as a privilege to accompany patients through life’s most vulnerable moments.
Match Day 2026 Success
226 Creighton medical students across Omaha and Phoenix have learned where they will continue their training as resident physicians. The strong performance of the Class of 2026 is a reflection of the caliber of Creighton medical students and faculty supporting them.
- 95% matched into their No. 1 specialty of choice.
- 100% are pursuing residencies or research fellowships in 20 specialty areas.
- 72 (32%) students matched into the primary care specialties of Internal Medicine (34), Pediatrics (24), Family Medicine (11) and Medicine-Pediatrics (3).
- The four most popular specialties were Internal Medicine (34), Pediatrics (24), Psychiatry (21), Anesthesiology (19) and Diagnostic Radiology (19).
- In order of popularity, the other specialties were Obstetrics and Gynecology (17), General Surgery (15), Family Medicine (11), Emergency Medicine (10), Neurology (10), Orthopaedic Surgery (10), Otolaryngology (5), Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation (4), Dermatology (3), Medicine-Pediatrics (3), Ophthalmology (3), Urology (3), Pathology (2), Plastic Surgery (1), Neurological Surgery (1) and Transitional Year (2) programs.
- Students matched into residencies in 36 states. Top states included Arizona (39), California (33), Nebraska (19), Ohio (12), Missouri (10), Illinois (8), Minnesota (8) and New York (8), to name just a few.
- The prestigious programs with which students matched included Creighton University, Barrow Neurological Institute, Mayo Clinic School of Graduate Medical Education, Barnes-Jewish/WashU in St. Louis, Brown, Vanderbilt, Johns Hopkins, Mass General Brigham, Cedars-Sinai, UCLA, UCSF, New York Presbyterian Columbia & Cornell, NYU Grossman School of Medicine, Cleveland Clinic and Stanford, among many others.
