Snow day....

So I haven't written in a while...what else is new??

Today was supposed to be my second to last day in Anesthesia at Coney Island but due to a winter storm last night in NYC (13 inches of snow has fallen) the Q/B subway to Coney is suspended as are the buses in Brooklyn, so I am stuck in my apartment. Oh yeah, its been so long since I posted you probably did not know that I started Anesthesia....well I did, and its almost done! Actually it has been a great rotation. I have intubated almost 10 patients all under the watchful eye of the Anesthesiologist.....actually, only 2 of them because these two doctors are the only ones that actually teach and allow students to do things at Coney. In fact, when they are not working I just go home. I wish I could post their names because they deserve alot of praise but I haven't asked and that would be inappropriate.

Interview season is officially over for me. It ended last Wednesday. I traveled to Lansing, Michigan to interview at Sparrow Hospital....and I loved it!!! I have spent the last week tossing around how the top of my list will shake out. I have numbers 4-9 set....but programs 1, 2, and 3 are almost impossible to rank. I can see myself at all three of them completely happy with my choice. And that is why I spend my days thinking about New Brunswick, Bethelehem, and Lansing...obsessing over their order...continuously changing their ranks...spending countless hours searching about the areas on my computer....playing scenarios over in my head....thinking I have it set and then 2 minutes later changing my mind. It is tiring and nauseating. I can't wait to just finalize my list and be done.

Of course to fully appreciate my struggle I should briefly explain the match process. Applicants (like myself) get inteviews....go on interviews....and then rank programs based on where they want to be. Programs also rank their applicants based on who they want. Then, the lists get dumped into a computer and this computer tries to match all applicants with a program. They say the process favors the applicant first, taking into account where they ranked programs and where they want to be. The hard part is....you have no idea how a program ranks you....they may say they like you and will rank you high but you just never know. Just like a program doesn't know whether applicants are truthful about where they are ranking programs. To be an applicant and believe that a computer program makes the final decision is like being a college football fan and believing in the computer to successfully rank the BCS (it just doesn't always work as past experiences have shown). You have to blindly put your faith into this system which is very hard for someone like me. The downside of this whole process is if you don't match, that is you are not paired with a program on your list because their positions are filled. Then you have to scramble which involves calling/faxing/emailing programs and begging for a residency position....sometimes a position in an area of medicine that you are not interested in....i.e. family medicine or pediatrics. I won't even begin to describe the full scramble process as it seems somewhat barbaric to me....if I end up in it then I will explain it to you.

In short, I am trying my best to differentiate 3 solid programs that all will offer me exactly what I want in terms of training....that all have great residents and attendings (from what I could tell during interviews)....that all are in great areas to live in. In shorter terms...this process really sucks.....I have until February 23rd to finalize my rank list. And the Match occurs March 14th....the wait is simply agonizing.