Match Day Profile: Nick Zellmer

Every third Friday in March, fourth-year medical students across the United States learn where the next chapter in their careers will be written. Match Day is the day when the National Resident Matching Program releases results to applicants in sealed envelopes, revealing where they will spend the next several years in residency, training in their chosen specialty. After years of preparation and study, it is a long-awaited and well-deserved day to celebrate. The University of Arizona College of Medicine – Phoenix is profiling several students for Match Day 2025.

Meet Nick Zellmer

Born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri, Nick Zellmer bounced around the country after graduating from high school — even living abroad for a while — to pursue various opportunities.

He started undergrad at the University of Rhode Island before transferring to the University of Arizona down in Tucson. Returning to the desert for medical school, this time Phoenix, was a real pleasure for him.

Zellmer feels fortunate to have all the supporters that he does. His parents are first and foremost among those people, as are his sister, Megan, and her family; his brother, Andy, and his wife; and many others in his extended family. 

Zellmer also feels lucky to have made numerous wonderful friends in medical school. Without their support, he doubts he would have made it to this point. Along with them, Zellmer credited the countless mentors — both from before and during medical school — who have guided him along this journey. 

He lastly wanted to thank his friends outside of medicine from his undergraduate and hockey days. They have kept him grounded and have reminded him that he is a person outside of this arduous path to become a physician.

Path Toward Medicine

What was the spark that led you to become a physician?

It always comes back to my love of science and my passion to help people, as I think it does for a lot of us. 

I loved my biology, anatomy and physiology courses during my undergraduate education and wanted to explore these areas further beyond college. This desire to learn combined with a commitment to making a profound and positive impact in the lives of others made a career as a physician the obvious choice. 

My experience as a patient who underwent multiple surgeries for sports-related injuries also played a part in my decision to pursue this path. 

Choosing a Specialty

Do you have a specialty? What is it and why did it interest you, or what led you to it?

I applied for general surgery, although I made this decision late in my journey (i.e., after the start of fourth-year). My love of the operating room (OR) made surgery very difficult to neglect. 

I found myself sad at the end of my surgical rotation in third-year, thinking that could have been my last time in the OR (before I officially decided to commit to surgery). Another aspect that resonated with me was the profound impact that one can make as a surgeon on his or her patients. 

There is the ultimate trust coming from the patient, and in response, the ultimate responsibility on behalf of the surgeon. I also love the people in the specialty as well as the general subject matter.

What’s Next

Post-Match Day, what are your goals moving forward?

My immediate goal is to enjoy the last bit of free time I have before the chaos of intern year starts — such as spending time with family and my dog, traveling and soaking up the last weeks I will be together with my beautiful classmates before we all go our separate ways.

Further down the line, I aspire to work as hard as I can during residency to become the best surgeon and physician that I can be — both in the surgical/medical sense but also in the sense of supporting my patients as human beings. 

The College of Medicine – Phoenix Culture

What will you miss most about the College of Medicine – Phoenix? Any advice for incoming medical students?

Like with every other experience in life, I will miss the people the most, especially my classmates, but also the mentors, the attendings, the residents, the educators, the staff, the faculty and so many more who all made these past four years such a tremendous experience. I will not soon forget any of them. 

I will also miss the variety of medicine that we have the privilege of seeing as medical students. Although I have applied to general surgery, there are multiple other specialties that I thoroughly enjoyed and am disappointed that I will not fully experience again. 

For future students, the biggest thing I can say is that things will work out. You are not in this position by mistake; you deserve to be here! It is easy to feel overwhelmed, but if you put the work in, you will succeed, graduate and become a physician one day. There were countless times throughout medical school where I felt like I might not make it to the finish line. These thoughts are both untrue and counter-productive; silence them anytime they rear their ugly heads. 

The other piece of advice is to enjoy experiences while they are there. Sure, medical school is extremely challenging, but don’t lose sight of the fact that we are lucky to be where we are and that you will (hopefully) look back at these days fondly in the future. To paraphrase Ferris Bueller, if you constantly look forward to the next step, it makes it difficult to enjoy the present to the fullest.

Wildcat Wonder

Lastly, what does it mean to you to be considered a ‘Wildcat Wonder?’

To be honest, I don’t feel like a “wonder” of any sort; I kind of just feel like any other person who made it through this process thanks to the contributions of so many people around me.

That being said, it has been a pleasure to pursue my medical education under the same umbrella institution from which I graduated college. I was ecstatic to come back to Arizona and get to know a new city for medical school. It’s also nice to bring the Wildcat presence up to Phoenix in a city that is dominated by our rival institution over in Tempe (which I will deliberately not name here). Bear Down!

Wildcat Wonder: A student who has attended the University of Arizona throughout their higher education journey, spanning from their bachelor’s degree and beyond.