Match

So, our fate has been decided - and it's a fairly appropriate way to describe it.  For those of you not aware of how medical students land their first paying job as resident physicians, let me share some of the angst that my wife and I have been going through for the past few months.  

After decided what specialty you're interested in, you apply to the different programs, interview there, and decide which program you want to attend.  You do the whole political dance, trying to get them to like you, etc, etc.  Then comes the Match List.  Let's say you've applied to seven residency programs.  You rank these residency programs from 1 to 7.  You have a certain date to get this done by, in my case Jan 23rd.  Then, you wait.  

Meanwhile, these same programs rank their applicants 1 to how ever many applicants applied.  After the programs make their lists, they send the lists to a neutral company who puts everything into a computer and, viola!  the magic happens.  The computer figures out, Okay Student A ranked their first choice as Program 1, and Program 1 ranked Student A within the number of slots they had, so he gets it.  Student B also ranked Program 1 as his first choice, but their slots were filled, but Program 2 ranked Student B within their number of slots, and that was Student B's second choice, so that's where he goes.  It continues on that way until either you match or you didn't (i.e. your list was too short and you weren't ranked within the slots that your program had available).  If you don't match, then you Scramble - appropriately named because you then freak out and run around trying to find a program that has open slots (a list is provided) that will take you.  

Amazed?  Confused?  Thanking your lucky stars that you didn't have to get a job this way?  Having never been in the military, I can't compare it to figuring out where you're going to be stationed or deployed, but I'm sure the anxiety is something close.

Then, a couple of weeks after everyone turns in their lists, the big day come: they release the results.  In my case, today was the day.  

We've been accepted to the Bangor Family Medicine Residency at Eastern Maine Medical Center and will start sometime around July 1st, which brings up another point: that's when all new residents start, so it's not a particularly wonderful time to get sick and end up in the hospital!