Match Maker, Match Maker...

A short explanation for those of you who are unfamiliar with "The Match." Basically, it is a system that places med school graduates into residencies based on the ranking they give programs, combined with the ranking that programs give them. As a side note, because I know this is a confusing point for many people, intern year is actually the first year of residency, and fellowship comes after residency. Brent's Internal Medicine residency will be three years long, and his plan right now is to also do a three year fellowship in Cardiology (and maybe an additional one year fellowship after that! ahh!). Moving right along...

Steps of Applying to Residency:

1) Brent applied to residencies around the country for his specialty, Internal Medicine.

2) He received interview invitations at some of these programs and either accepted or declined them.

3) Brent interviewed at 6 programs in person: Wake Forest (here), Georgetown (DC), OHSU (Portland), University of Washington (Seattle), CU (Denver), and University of Utah.

4) We ranked the programs according to a plethora of deciding factors including, but not limited to: program strength/reputation (important for fellowship), awesomeness of the city, expensiveness of the city (closely related to the previous factor), proximity to family, proximity to airport, salary (including state taxes, sales tax, etc), likelihood of friends wanting to visit us, etc, etc.

5) Programs ranked Brent according to how cool and/or dorky they think he was.

6) We wait (this is happening right NOW)

7) Black Monday - dun dun DUN!! On Monday, March 14th, which also happens to be Brent's birthday (!), everyone applying to residency finds out whether they matched or not. If a student didn't match, the school will try to place them somewhere in the country that has an open spot...not a good situation in which to find oneself.

8) Match Day!! On Thursday, March 17th, which also happens to be St. Patrick's Day (!), every med student in the country (with some exceptions) finds out where they will be attending residency! We will go up to the hospital where everyone will open their envelopes at once and life's most important question will be answered, finally!

Got it?

I know, it's kind of dumb and complicated, but after watching several friends graduate from law or business school and have a ridiculously hard time finding jobs, I'm starting to think that we got lucky! All of our options are great, we really don't have any "fallback" options or "throw-aways," so I'm not so much nervous about the match, just excited to see what the fates have in store for us!

Now for some pictures, because I just can't do an "all text" post, it's against my nature.

We went to hanging rock (for like the 23rd time) last week because it was a beautiful, sunny day and we just couldn't help it. I even gave the camera to Brent for a while so there is proof of me being there!

It was a little bit windy...can you tell??

You may have already seen this last one on facebook, but just in case you missed it, I'm reposting it. Brent almost died laughing when I showed it to him, so I didn't want any of you to miss the opportunity ;)

Well, I'm off to do some more waiting* - tell the Match Maker to make us a good one!

* waiting = trying to find a temporary (probably) job until graduation - not going well so far! I'll keep you updated ;)