GALVESTON, Texas - When Cesar De Paz enters a university auditorium in Galveston on March 20 to learn where the next phase of his medical training will be, it will be but one more segment of a journey that took his family from war-torn El Salvador to Houston. 

De Paz will be among 190 students at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston on Match Day, waiting to hear his name announced on one of the most important days of a doctor's career. For it's on this day that students at UTMB and other medical schools across the U.S. will open envelopes that will tell them where they will receive residency training in their chosen specialty. 

One by one, envelopes with students' names will be randomly pulled from a big glass bowl on the stage at Levin Hall at UTMB.

It's been a tough trek for the De Paz family who came to Houston in 1982. His father, Nicolas De Paz, did not like it here, Cesar said, and went back to El Salvador a year later to sell watermelons in the street as he had done before fleeing.  

As he waits in Levin Hall for his name, it will be a time for De Paz to reflect on a journey that left his functionally illiterate mother alone in a strange land to raise her three sons after her husband decided to return to El Salvador. As he did recently, De Paz may remember how his older brother, Clemente, quit high school in order to work and help the struggling family. And how his younger brother, Jose, also sacrificed so that De Paz could pursue his dream of becoming a psychiatrist.

"My mom, without an education, managed to raise the three of us, made sure we became U.S. citizens; she figured out the paperwork somehow. She's amazing," De Paz said. "And my brothers. If it weren't for them giving up their aspirations, I wouldn't be here. Without them, I wouldn't have made it this far."

So when his named is called and De Paz walks onto the stage of Levin Hall, he'll be hoping that he gets a residency at UTMB so he can stay close to his family in Houston.

De Paz is one of 39 students from Harris County participating in Match Day, 23 of whom are from Houston. Nine of the students are from Galveston County, with five listing the city of Galveston as their hometown.