Counting down to match day

I know it has been a while since my last post. I've been on the interview trail, been all over the country. It is an expensive process but really really exciting. I love travelling! So I applied for General Surgery residency and got many interviews. I actually had to cancel some interviews in order to narrow them to a manageable number. I don't have any restrictions as far as location is concerned. I'm basically looking for a program that will give me the best training hence giving me the chance to become the best Surgeon that I can be. Looking for where my hunger for knowledge both basic science and clinical medicine will be met in other words, an environment that will allow me to do research. I also have a strong interest in international health and a program that fosters that is a plus. I just want to end up somewhere where I can thrive through my hard work. Luckily enough, I've been able to see programs that can give me the opportunity to attain my goals. Now my daily prayer is that one of these places find traits, qualities, strengths about me that will make them want to rank me high enough for me to end up there. I do have my number 1 dream program of course and would be extremely excited if I end up there. However, I will be OK if I end up in my top 6 programs. So at the end of the day it all boils down to Rank order list or ranking and match day!

What is this rank order list I talk about? It is basically what all 4th yr US med students (seniors) have to go through. After interviewing for residency in our respective specialties (General Surgery for me), we make a list based on how much we like each program where we had an interview. We may decide to include all programs where we interviewed or on the other hand, we may decide not to include some of the programs; those programs where we do not want to do residency. In the end you end up with a list from 1 up to any number (depending on the number of interviews you went to and where you want to go to). 1 will be your top choice then followed by 2 which will be the next place where you would want to go in case you do not end up at your top choice, then no. 3 and so on. We put in this data in to a central database in the computer in late February (February 24, 2010 for the class of 2010). Various programs do the same thing. After this all we have to do is wait till 2 days before match day when we get emails notifying us if we matched or not. If we match, we are told where we matched. Match day is the day that we know exactly where we matched to. On that faithful day at noon, all US med school graduating seniors open envelopes to see where they'll spend yrs doing residency. As you can already imagine, it is a day filled with anxiety and anticipation. You have no idea where you'll end up spending the next 3-7yrs (General Surgery residency is anywhere from 5-7yrs). Match day this year is on March 18 at noon.

But before Match day, I'll be spending my next 2 months (March and April) in Eastern Maryland (rural Maryland) doing primary care medicine which is required for all Univ. Maryland seniors prior to graduation. My classmates have told me that it was lots of fun and I look forward to that. I'm currently taking a Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) elective which is quite enriching and opens this whole different world of taking time to look in to my self and being proactive about taking good and healthy decisions and habits.

I'll definitely update you in the coming wks or month. I appreciate your reading and any feedback is much appreciated too.