Match Day Musings: A Blast From The Past

So for those of you in the know, last week marked a rather momentous occasion in the world of future doctors: Match Day.

This event, however, is more than a "Day". It's the culmination of four years of willingly adopting an alternate lifestyle: Friday nights in the anatomy lab trying to make sense of a cadaver's arteries and nerves; Friday nights on call struggling to subdue a hyperactive pager; Friday nights cramming the brachial plexus pathways and Krebs cycle enzymes to coax out a few extra points on Step 1 (somehow these tasks take on a special poignancy on Friday nights).

This is the Day of Reckoning, where the universe is supposed to right itself according to the karmic equations of justness, where finally (finally!) money (money!) is to be earned Doing Something I Truly Love (or for a certain subset of folks, Something That Truly Makes Bank). In some cases, the outcome appears not quite so karmically just, leading to the day's semi-bittersweet tinge. But, when the dust settles, there is still solace in the pretty awesome fact that yes, you're going to be a doctor.

So one year later, here I was, walking down the street to the hospital to take another night of call. The bars and lounges lining the street seemed to be pulsating with a particuarly heightened sense of happiness, brimming with rather, shall we say, "happy" looking individuals toasting their future careers. That's when it hit me: today was match day! I stopped for a second, surveyed the scene and smiled benignly, like a mom who sees her young child eagerly begging to take out the trash every day and clean up Fido's "mess" since he's now become a "big boy". Ah, the happy, happy innocence of youth.

In the spirit of nostalgia that such occasions always seem to bring, I managed to dig up my own innocently happy musings during Match Day 2008. Here it is, in honor of match day and all the stellar folks who are now going to - heh heh - be interns next year!


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Written on Match Day 2008

Congratulations! You win a million dollars!

Congratulations! You've won a lifetime supply of Loeffler Randall boots!


Congratulations! You have been hired as Zingerman's International Chocolate Cherry Bread and Magic Brownie Consultant, involving daily taste-testing responsibilities!


Okay, so maybe not literally any of the above. But on March 20, as my shaking fingers ripped open that little white envelope to read my destiny in internal medicine, it pretty much felt like the same thing. (Well, the Loeffler Randall boot thing might be slightly, just slightly, more amazing. But I digress.) All the dreary days spent in Step 1 and Step 2 studying limbo, running on the treadmill to the pleasant entertainment of anatomy and pharmacology flashcards, languishing in the scrub-wearing rut and clothing erosion of third year, nursing shoulder injuries from Overstuffed White Coat syndrome and Prolonged-Retracting-in-the-OR-itis, falling asleep in the middle of dinner post-call....After years of relative modesty ("Oh no, Ms. Jones, I'm not a doctor yet - still got a few years to go!" *insert pleasant hearty chuckle*) and acting as lowest rung on the totem pole ("Can I get you a refill on that motor oil acid backwash - uh, coffee?"), here, FINALLY, was our day to shine.

Yes, for those eternal cynics and naysayers out there, I'm fully aware that in just a few short months we will essentially go back to being both modest and the lowest rung on the totem pole once more. But let's just try to stay in the sentimental, mushy feel-good mood for the moment, hmm?

On match day, as M4s on the brink of being *real* doctors, we stood wiser and older (as - sigh - my cavernous undereye circles will attest...future business for some generous dermatologists in my class?); having whittled down our white coats to the essential tools and cheat sheets we needed (hint: incoming M1s, resist urge to buy $400 ophthalmoscope), finessed our history taking and physical skills to the point where we no longer spent 2 hours obtaining a careful review of systems from a new patient ("So what were you saying about that tingling in the middle of your left pinky toe that comes once a year? And can you tell me more about that problem you have with your teeth itching?"). After a nerve-wracking month of waiting, largely spent rehearsing the task of saying, artfully and convincingly, "Hi, I'm Dr. K and I'll be taking care of you today" without breaking into a cold sweat, here it manifested: our futures in medicine.

Of course, the moment of suspense was only intensified by the super long process, planned by the powers that be in your typical, drawn-out, let's-make-them-agonize-as-much-as-possible-to-give-them-their-money's-worth-since-they-did-pay-us-a-month's-rent-in-fees NRMP fashion.

So you all know about the month of waiting after ranking our choices in February. The next step happened three days ago (March 17), at 12 noon EST, where we all received a "Did I match?" email from the NRMP. Hopefully, this would inform all of us that "Congratulations! You have matched!" (If not, though, then one would get ready to Scramble.) I was all set to check my email exactly on time. However, at 12 noon EST, my moment of reckoning was slightly shattered by the fact I got pulled over for driving with an older license plate. Unfortunately, reasoning with the police officer that today was You Find Out If You Match Day, or that I was just coming out of Waiting to Find Out If and Where You Match Month didn't quite work. So, after driving home, carefully rescuing a screwdriver from the depths of my supply closet, cleaning up all the old shoeboxes, toilet paper rolls and batteries that came toppling down after removing said screwdriver, wrestling off my old plate in the freezing Ann Arbor wind and replacing it with the a snazzier BNX 9007 - and then lovingly placing my Obama '08 sticker I had just received in the mail on the dusty depths of my rear bumper - I finally turned on my computer and affirmed that, indeed, I had matched. Whew.

And now as I'm beginning to reflect that drawn-out NRMP style of information conveying, I guess I should come to the point and return to that memorable Match Day at the Sheraton three days later. Amidst swanky chandeliers, hors d'oeuvres and a throng of family and friends, us nascent matchees placed our names in a giant fishbowl and waited to be randomly selected to come up on stage, where (if our hands were functioning) we were to open our envelopes and share our fate with the entire class. Suspense was obviously the theme of the day -and not just to find out where you'd matched. Did I mention the huge bowl of $$ on stage, filled by contributions from generous faculty and not-so-generous M4s, to be gifted to the last person who was called?

With each name called, I found myself even more on edge, hoping that everyone had matched into a place they loved, waiting to see where friends and classmates had matched, awed by the stellar places that were read. And while there are always the initial disappointments and bittersweet moments, I think we did, overall, really well.

So, at this point, inquiring minds likely demand to know, what about me? Well, right smack in the middle of the pack, I finally got called up to stage. It's funny how almost every moment is just framed in minute detail: pushing back chair, standing up (smoothing down skirt to make sure none of those unflattering bumps or wrinkles would detract from zee moment - I mean, Match Day is picture haven!), taking deep breath, clutching onto wrinkled unspecified amount of money to deposit into fishbowl, maneuvering gingerly to stage, entering in the wrong direction at first and being gently guided to the other side, then walking across the stage, receiving the envelope of destiny from the Dean with my name printed in official Times New Roman, wondering tangentially why anyone would pick Times New Roman - such a blase, anti-climactic font, really - to convey such important news; wouldn't a more celebratory Castellon or embossed Cursiva be more appropriate?, tugging hard at the envelope with fumbling fingers to open it, wishing I hadn't clipped my nails quite so short because now I was having diffulty getting the damned thing open, finally extricating the little plain piece of paper and unfolding it, scanning down the page to read:

Congratulations! You have matched! (At least *this* was in bold.)

And then I discovered that, despite all the doubts and hand-wringing and second-guessing and more agonizing of the past month, I was looking at the program name of my Number One Choice. The program that I'd fell in love with when I interviewed, the one that spoke to my goals and interests in medicine, that appealed to me in its uniqueness and friendliness, and, yes, location. And this means: I'm moving to California! I will officially live in a box and pay a good 180% markup in rent - but I will be minutes from the beach! the mountains! the view! the fog! Peet's Coffee and Tea! Farmer's markets! my own gourmet salad fixings garden! and SF shopping!! I will ride up cute little crooked streets on my bike and stroll by Fisherman's Wharf and eat Ghirardelli chocolate and sourdough bread - on days off. So come visit me!

The rest of the day was pretty much a haze. One of the more memorable points was receiving a voice mail from my best friend in Texas, in which she stated, "At this point, there's only one thing that needs to be said-" and then proceeded to sing/rap our old song-to-blast-with-windows-down-anthem-of-college-days, 2Pac's "California Love". (I'd post it on here, but sadly, she's threatened to disown me if I ever make this fabulous message public.) I remember eating a lot of chocolate, hugging a lot of people, taking pictures and then celebrating a few hours later. Let's just suffice it to say that it was, overall, a pretty good day.

A good day, of course, but also definitely bittersweet...for those that didn't end up where they wanted, for those experiencing the disappointments that are invariably part of this day. Bittersweet for everyone leaving, I'd say, regardless of where they matched. Probably more than one of us felt that underlying sadness that comes from leaving the cocoon that you've called home for 4 years (or even longer) - the place, after all, that helped us to get where we're going next.

Ann Arbor, after all, is where I learned how college football can consume a city (and how fun it is to back a team that's actually good!), what exactly one means by "freezing fog advisory", proper usage of the nifty terms "catacorner" and "yooper", how to use one's hand to depict state geography, the intricacies of Thinsulate vs down vs fleece. This is where I bought my first Nalgene bottle (trust me, peer pressure forces you to have one in Ann Arbor), found that I could literally treat a grocery store as a second home (yea Whole Foods!! It has food, samples, free internet, chocolate, coffee, and bathrooms. What more do you need?), and that two little heavens on earth exist; one in a little place called Zingerman's Deli and the other Nichols Arboretum in full bloom. This is where I learned how gloriously beautiful spring is when it follows a nasty winter, the art of planting cherry tomatoes and cilantro on your patio, and how running from Dexter to Ann Arbor with brave souls from your class makes for a not-so-bad half-marathon. Oh yeah, and this is also where I learned all the medicine I know, too. (So, for the record, at least I have someone to blame. Heh. Heh.)

So - swallowing little old lump in throat - this is officially the transition to goodbye. Time to join the ranks of all the M4s unloading books, furniture, electronics, real estate, socks (yes, socks), and sundries to all those eager thrifty spenders in classes below me. And as I pack, I'm wondering: how on earth did I accumulate so many shoes in 4 years?? And, grrr, time to start going through and archiving the 4000-odd emails I have in my university webmail account, which apparently is - gasp! - being sent to cyberspace wasteland after we graduate. (And I thought they really loved me.) But apart from that, I'm clinging on to the good month or so I have of being a relaxed, cheery M4, awaiting graduation in May.

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