The Match

Again, if you’ll recall from my very first post, there were a few major life events that shaped my vision for this blog. Event #2: The Match. You had better sit down. This is a long story.

The Match (yes, I’m going to capitalize it as if it’s a proper noun because in my mind, it should be) has been this thing, this sort of indescribable weight that has been following us around for almost 4 years now. In the last year or so it’s gotten increasingly heavier and weighed on us almost as much as the 40+ pounds I gained when I was pregnant.

Patrick, world’s best husband and dad, decided after a trip we took to Asia (that’s a story for another post), that he wanted to be a doctor. This was, obviously, a decision I was ready to fully support even though he was neither my husband or father of my children at this point. Unfortunately, a degree in psychology will not do much to help one get into med school. And so the schooling began again. Patrick started taking preliminary classes in 2006 or 2007 (the years all blur together) and worked in surgical services at one of the hospitals in town. He completed the prelims and took the dreaded MCAT for admittance into med school and got a great score. He applied to tons of different schools and was granted an interview at the University of New Mexico.

His interview was scheduled for 7:30 one morning with a doctor named Dr. Goodluck. We thought for sure that with a name like that the guy might be a genie in a bottle or something and that Patrick might actually receive some good luck from him. Not so. The interview was terrible. First, the location where the interview was scheduled was under construction so Patrick had to figure out where to find the doctor. Then, the doctor asked some really silly questions. I won’t repeat them here, Albuquerque is too small and I’d hate to put the rest of Patrick’s career in jeopardy. Well, that’s being a bit dramatic…but the actual questions don’t matter anyway. A few weeks later, the rejection letter arrived. I thought it’d be a good idea to throw Patrick a surprise birthday party around this time. Sorry babe, in retrospect, that was probably a bad idea.

This is what it looks like to “celebrate” rejection. That’s Patrick on the right. Boys, you’re welcome for posting this picture. I knew there was a reason to document this moment, otherwise, I wouldn’t have any photos for this post!

So, here we were again forced to decide if Patrick should retake the MCAT or not, reapply to med school or not, keep working at the hospital or not. Luckily, Patrick picked himself up, dusted himself off, and reached out to several people who have since become his champions and mentors. He built a sort of team to help him increase his likelihood of being accepted if he applied again. Which he did. Thank goodness.

Rejection or acceptance letters were scheduled to arrive in the mail on or around March 17. I remember this because it was St. Patrick’s day…how’s that for good luck (of the Irish)?! I came home for lunch that day hoping to get the mail and deliver some good news, but I had just missed the mailman and there was a notice in the box that our certified mail would be available for pick up at our local post office the following Monday. This was THURSDAY!! There was no way we could wait all weekend to find out for sure one way or another (apparently, there was no such thing as email a way back then…). I immediately hopped in my car and commenced driving around the neighborhood looking for the mailman. Believe it or not, I found him, approached his truck, scared the living crap out of him (because I’m so scary, ya know?), and asked him if he could give us our mail. He handed me the certified letter and I went on my way, trying to keep my excitement from showing. (You see, the year before, when we received a rejection letter, it was not certified mail, so I had a good feeling about this one).

Sure enough, we opened the letter and Patrick had officially been accepted to the University of New Mexico School of Medicine, class of 2014! Yay!!

The last 4 years Patrick has worked harder than I could ever imagine working. He studied non stop, he was admitted to all the right honor societies, scored really high on all his board exams, he made great friends, faced some major challenges, and is almost finished and ranked toward the top of his class.

About the time I got pregnant, he had to seriously start thinking about what specialty he wanted to go into and schedule the next year in such a way that he would be set up to be accepted into a program that he liked, in that specialty. And so that match process begins (sorry for the epic back story!):

Around July or August of 2013, Patrick decided that he wanted to be an orthopedic surgeon. Applications for residency positions were due sometime in October and Patrick applied to over 50 (!!!) programs just to be sure he’d secure enough interviews and to secure a spot! This is not backed up by any research, not even internet research, but I’ve heard that there are something like 1200 orthopedic residency applicants for 600 spots all over the country. Pretty soon, the invitations for interviews started coming in (believe it or not, they came via email).

Patrick interviewed at 8 different programs around the country including UNM. I think he enjoyed traveling for the interviews and seeing some of the other programs. While Patrick was in Vermont, the twins showed up. Silver lining: Patrick had something very unique to share with the people conducting the interviews–he had twins that were literally only hours old and a wife who’s liver had threatened to kill her. He finished up his interviews and then it was time to submit his “rank list.”

We hemmed and hawed over what would be the best place for our family to move and decided that either Ann Arbor, Michigan, or San Antonio would work best for us if we didn’t end up staying here.

We even got these onesies, just in case.

And then it was that Tuesday night I told you about where the crazy people at the hospital sent us home with two kids. His rank list was due the very next day and all those programs listed above were immediately bumped down a spot and UNM was placed at the tippie top of that list after a night of no sleep!

Each student ranks their choices of where to go (people typically only rank programs where they’ve interviewed), and the programs rank their candidates and they throw them all in a hat, each student walks up on stage, puts the hat on, and the hat tells them where they’ll be going for the next 5 years. Oh, wait, that’s not right, but it might as well be! Some sort of computer  algorithm (is that even a thing?) matches students to programs, using the best match first. Based on this system, you can see that we didn’t have much of a choice. Whatever the computer comes up with is what it is and there is no choice in the matter. The student goes to the one program that the algorithm decides is the best possible match based on the rank lists of the students and the programs.

My favorite question: Where do you want to go?
My favorite answer: We won’t have much of a choice. Do you know how The Match works?

And then I’d spend the next 30 minutes explaining the process to someone. So if you are ever confused about how it works, reread this post and take a few deep breaths because Patrick and I are so sick of explaining it that we might just refuse to next time you ask.

Match day was Friday, March 21st and the Monday before that, all the 4th year med students across the country received an email letting them know if they matched. Patrick was in an anatomy lab practicing sewing people up when his email came and he called me immediately–he’d matched! My husband was/is going to be an orthopedic surgeon. Or is it orthopaedic? Whatever. I won’t go into what would have happened if he didn’t match, though there were several people in his class who did not.

We spent the next 4 days wondering where the heck we’d end up. That Friday, we went to a brunch where everyone opened their match letters. There were lots of tears of both joy and sadness as Patrick and his classmates learned where they’d spend the next 3 to 5 years of their lives. As you already know, Patrick matched at the University of New Mexico and we’ll be staying here, where we have an amazing support system, a great little house, lots of friends, soccer teams, and no polar vortex!

Here’s a terrible picture of all of us on match day, in case you were having a difficult time imagining what people in a banquet room in a hotel look like.

Up until yesterday, every single person we’d talked to about the match would say something like, ” Oh my gosh, aren’t you glad you’re staying here?!” or, “It’s so great you don’t have to move.” Then yesterday the mom of one of our childhood friends asked if there was a small part of us that was disappointed that we wouldn’t be moving. The answer is yes, for both of us. We had spent a lot of time considering moving and had even poked around the interwebbings looking at homes for sale in the places we might end up. The prospect of leaving was exciting and there is a little twinge of disappointment that we aren’t making an epic cross country move with 2 dogs and 6 month old twins. And then we think about it again and realize that we are EXACTLY where we’re suppose to be.

That cross country move? That polar vortex? That selling our house? That buying a new house? Yeah, I can do without all of that. We are thrilled to be staying. UNM has a great program with great surgeons, our kids will get to grow up with their cousins, and we’ll have tons and tons of support–it takes a village!

Let the residency begin!