THE Match

I have blogged about THE Match some and gotten a few questions about it so I thought I would devote a post to it.  As well as because it is an extremely unusual process, it is currently consuming my every thought, and because my poor hard working husband never gets a post of his own!

I took this picture a few years ago so Matt's mom and Grandmothers could see him in his "uniform."  That is the only reason he agreed to it :).  He is currently what I refer to as a short coat doctor.  Quick story - many people in our country use the ER as their primary care clinic.  This is one of MANY problems with our health care system.  And in the process of incorrectly using the system they do not receive the best possible care (not b/c the doctors and nurses don't care about them but b/c the 4 car pile up cases take priority over your flu symptoms).  When you use UMC or any other teaching hospital's ER as your primary care clinic you get "short coat" doctors or as we know them, medical students.  Since these patients are "working" the system they know how the system works.  So when a young medical student walks in to take care of them they immediately request "a long coat doctor."  HA HA!  They don't want a short coat doctor.  The fact that someone has gone into an ER enough times to know the difference is just scary.

But I digress. My original intent of this post was to explain The Match process.  For anyone familiar with rush it is just like that and you can stop reading here.  For those of you that are not familiar please continue reading.  Matt applied to several orthopedic programs in the southeast and one in Denver (because we could ski and Meghan lives close).  Unfortunately he did not get an interview in Denver, but he did get an interview to 10 programs in the southeast.  So off to 10 interviews he went in December and January.  The cities included; Jackson, 3 schools in New Orleans, Little Rock, Birmingham, Chattanooga TN, Huntington West Virginia, Columbia South Carolina, and Richmond Virgina.  As if driving and flying to all of these interviews was not hard enough he had to rank them in February and now we WAIT. 

Just like rush you rank the schools (after praying over it FOREVER), the schools rank you, the lists are put into a computer, and the computer spits out THE Matches.  And since Matt's specialty is so competitive we don't know where we will be.  Honestly we will be happy wherever he matches because we will know that is where God wants us, but the not knowing part is KILLING me.  After Friday, March 16 I will feel like a new anxiety free woman!  Matt plays is cool like he is not dying to know, but after 12 years I know him better than that!  He's not fooling me.  He does say the Monday before Match Day is what he cares about.  This is the day you get an email if you didn't match and you have to do what they call "scramble."  The process is exactly how it sounds, you scramble for spots that were not filled on that Monday and by that Friday you find out where you are going.  NUTS!!  Everything about this process is NUTS and it's driving me NUTS.

Then to top it off, on Match Day at UMC they make you go on stage and read the school you are going to in front of your classmates and their families.  And if that is not mean enough when you go up to read it, it is the first time you are finding out too.  Yea, isn't that terrible?  So now you know how the process works and that I am dying to know where we are going, but can you blame me?  I mean it is only dictating the next 5 years of our lives.  So prayers are welcome and needed.  Happy Monday y'all!