Match day was today and all over the US, medical students found out where the next few years of our lives will be spent. Prior to "match morning", I spent the night on call in the Surgery/Trauma ICU at Harborview. It might have been okay to be post-call on match day but something in the cafeteria that night turned my guts inside out! Rather than getting a few meager hours of sleep in the nice new call rooms I spent from 1am until 5am going back and forth from the call room to the bathroom. Not a good way to start the day as my stomach was still rebelling on the way to my match ceremonies! (Reminder #1 for residency: Never again will I eat from a salad bar in a hospital, ever, no matter how sick I am of fried food and how much I need something green and healthy to eat!) In the end I made it to the medical school on my bicycle and my stomach held fast. I received my envelope along with the other 200 some-odd students in my class. Now for the hard part... opening it.I actually have a lot to write on this subject, but for right now I only have the time to convey something simple and to let everyone know where I will be "constructively procrastinating" for the next three years as an Emergency Medicine resident - Sacramento, California at UC Davis! I am happy to say I matched at one of my top three choices for residency and overall I ranked eleven programs, so I am lucky and thankful to be in a great place at a great program! I am also a little sad about not matching into my top choice because I really had my heart set on it. But in the match, as in life, I am sure that it all works out. It is funny that no matter how much you try and remain open to all your options you truly do get your hopes and heart set on certain things, whether they are right for you or not. When those things don't come to fruition you have to mourn the loss of the little fantasy you created. You have to let go of what you had hoped you would get and accept the reality of what you are given in its place. Usually reality turns out for the best I think as living in fantasy has rarely done me any good. Emergency Medicine is becoming a competitive specialty and I just feel lucky that such a good program felt I was worth ranking highly. I hope to do my best to be the intern and resident they hope I will be! Sorry Salt Lake.... I will miss your friendly folks and ever present ski mountains but I am leaving for Northern California, a place I am sure to love and I am excited to start the planning!
3 comments:
Congrats!!! I'm sorry you did not get your top choice. BUT... I can speak from experience with the faculty, residents, and hospital, that UC Davis is a PHENOMENAL place to train for EM. And from following your journey online these last few years, I think the culture of the place will be a good fit for you.
Do be careful of the salad bar there too. I got middle of the night food poisoning on call one miserable night my 3rd year.
Feel free to email me if you want to chat about Sacto and I can also put you in touch w/ some cool residents up there if you want a climbing buddy, drinking buddy, etc :)
Good to hear you got a top 3 choice. Sounds like a good program. Understand that intern year, regardless, sucks. Know that going in and it won't be as bad :)
Thanks you two! I hope I did not sound to disappointed in Davis because I am not. I just had to mourn the loss of the fantasy I created around Salt Lake and Albuquerque. Davis is great and I ranked it in my top three because I knew I would like it there. I woke this morning starting to make plans in my head and it feels good! As far as intern year, I plan on taking a nice break beforehand and then treating it like a mountain climb. This is a year long summit attempt, put your head down and start hiking....
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