Match Week!

Yesterday (well, it's technically now Wednesday, so the day before yesterday, but I'm still awake from Tuesday with insomnia) all the 4th-year medical students around the country found out if they matched for residency. If they did, then they did not receive an email on Monday at 11:30 am. If they did not match, then they received an email. If they received the email, then Tuesday they started scrambling for open spots around the country. Most should still match somewhere, but maybe not in their chosen field.

On Thursday at noon, they will all be gathered in auditoriums at their medical schools holding envelopes that tell them where they matched.

In one year, that's going to be me. AAAAAAAHHHHHHH! I'm nervous thinking about it even now. I'm attending this year's Match Day event at UofL, to see how it all goes down, so I can start planning our own Match Day extravaganza for next year. I'll let you know how it goes.

In the meantime, the New York Times wrote their own piece on residency match, with a particular focus on the lifestyle fields. In case you didn't know, it is said (only slightly tongue-in-cheek) that the ROAD to happiness in medicine is paved by Radiology, Ophthamology, Anesthesiology, and Dermatology. As in, those are the "lifestyle" fields. Lots of money for not so much work (relatively). And that's why they're so competitive to get into. Only suckers like me work this hard for 25+ years only to choose a field that has pretty much the crappiest hours guaranteed once you're done. Stupid babies being born in the middle of the night.

Anyway, good luck on Thursday (tomorrow!) to all the 4th years at UofL, as well as Dora and Tam and Dan. I wrote this same good luck bit this time last year, and next year I'll be saying it to myself :)

Seriously, why am I not tired at 3 am?