March 17, 2025, David Mitchell — Thousands of U.S. medical students will find out where they will continue their training when they open their Match Day emails on March 21. Although Austen Ott doesn’t yet know where the Match will lead, the fourth-year University of Minnesota Medical School student has a pretty good idea what the destination will look like.
“The programs I applied to have strong reputations for training residents to practice full-spectrum family medicine, so when their residents graduate, they feel ready to do whatever it is that their community will need them to do,” said Ott, who grew up in rural Indiana on a blueberry farm. “I’m definitely interested in going to a place that’s similar to where I grew up. I really want to practice full-spectrum family medicine with obstetrics, including inpatient care and delivering babies. I ultimately want to go to an area that’s a little less populated and bring those skills to a community. That’s something I’m passionate about.”
Ott shadowed family physicians in high school and as an undergraduate student at Indiana University, and entered medical school with an interest in the specialty.
“Seeing the lack of health care access and the need for more primary care physicians in my own state was what inspired me to go to medical school in the first place,” Ott said. “When I was researching medical schools and the different specialties, I was most interested in a specialty that allowed physicians to become really involved in their communities and public health. The more research I did, the more I got pointed toward family medicine.”
A trip to the AAFP’s National Conference of Family Medicine Residents and Medical Students (now FUTURE) after Ott’s first year in medical school helped solidify their specialty choice.
“One of the things that really opened me up to the possibility of family medicine is that you can do so many different things, from addiction medicine to wilderness medicine to academic medicine in an urban center, and I didn’t have a true understanding of that prior to going to the conference,” said Ott, the student chair of FUTURE 2025, which will be held July 31–Aug. 2 in Kansas City, Missouri. “You get to learn so many things. There are hands-on skills and procedure workshops. There is a large residency fair, so you can talk to programs you might be interested in. And you get to meet medical students from across the country who are interested in the same things as you. The energy is great.”
During their third year in medical school, Ott participated in the Rural Physician Associate Program at the University of Minnesota, a longitudinal, integrated clinical experience at a rural hospital where their family medicine preceptors were Lee Haggenjos, M.D. and Anthony Amon, M.D.
“Over the course of nine months, I got to spend most days working directly with them,” Ott said. “Whatever they were doing that day is what I was doing. If one of them was in the emergency room, I was working in the emergency room. If they had a patient on the labor deck, I was helping deliver the baby. Developing good relationships with mentors was another critical aspect for choosing family medicine, and going to National Conference helped me understand how to find mentors, reach out and build relationships with people. That ultimately connected me to that clinic experience and having relationships with those physicians.”
Medical students matching in 2026 — and beyond: Did you know that at the AAFP’s FUTURE 2025 you can:
Save $25 when you register by April 3 for the July 31 to
Aug. 2 event in Kansas City, Missouri.
Scholarships are available to reduce expenses, such as registration, travel, lodging, and meals, to attend FUTURE. Apply by May 1.
In addition to serving as FUTURE’s student chair, Ott is a student member of the AAFP Commission on Education and is the student member of the Minnesota AFP Board of Directors.
“One of the things my AAFP involvement has shown me is how easy it is to be engaged at different organizational levels, whether that’s medical school or residency, state or national,” they said. “When I start my intern year this summer, my plan is to focus on being an intern. At the same time, I’ve learned skills during the past couple of years to integrate advocacy in the everyday work that I do. Once I feel strong in my intern skills, I’m excited to turn back around and continue to be involved with the AAFP on a larger scale.”