It’s that time of year, when 4th year medical students, across the USA,  have their hands elbow deep in preparing  for residency; writing personal statements (that are creative, but not too creative), requesting letters of recommendation from professors and doctors alike (you just hope they say the right things that will make you shine), spending countless hours researching programs, getting their applications up to date and finely tuned, then forking over the money to submit these applications.  The more you submit, the steeper the $ curve.

It’s a process that takes a long time.  A real long time.  On top of that, they’re still doing their rotations and tests.  But 4th year is better than 3rd year, HANDS DOWN!  (The light at the end of the tunnel is getting brighter!)

If you know anyone that has anything good or bad to say about the programs/cities on this whiteboard, I want to hear about it!  We need all the info we can get!

We’ve been contemplating where we want to go for Residency for months, maybe even years.  I spend hours and hours on Internet websites, like CNN MONEY, and FORBES and MSNBC, researching:

The best place to raise a family:

(Delaware County OH, Geaugee County OH, Johnson country KS, Ozaukee County WI, Hamilton County IN)

The best small towns:

(Mulkiteo WA, Superior CO, Raleigh NC, Acton MA, West Goshen PA)

Most affordable homes:

(Buffalo, Syracuse, Rochester and Binghamton NY)

The most miserable places to live:

(Detroit MI, Stockton CA, Flint MI, NYC NY, Philadelphia PA)

America’s best cheap places to live:

(Spokane WA, Ogden UT, Minneapolis MI, Fort Worth TX, Ann Arbor MI, Albany NY, Durham NC)

Most affordable places to live:

(Indianapolis IN, St. Louis MO, Pittsburgh PA, Cincinnati OH, Austin TX)

I wanna end up in a place that I’ll love.  A place that’s safe for my kids.  A place where one orange doesn’t cost 150 pennies.  A place where I can have a white Christmas and a dry mild Summer.  A place that has lots of trails, parks, museums,  and green trees that make a canopy over the street.  A place with low crime, great schools, good air quality and a Target.  Oh, and places that have a temple within an hours drive and some mountains and beaches would be nice too!  A place that is close enough to see family within a days’ drive, you know, a place with few earth quakes, tornadoes, hurricanes,  kinda like the BEST OF EVERYTHING?!

Am I asking too much?

Hence the fanatical searches for the “BEST OF…”  on everything!

I know what I don’t like: desert, humidity and flat land. So that rules out half of the United States.  Sacrifices will be made.  Vermont has been good to us.

So we’ve narrowed it down to 47 Programs..and even then, we’re still not *SURE* where we want to go, I mean, where *I* want to go.  Rick says, “I don’t know, hun….!!!!”

And he’s right.  He doesn’t know.  All he knows is that in a given week, he’ll spent around 75 hours at the hospital, 36 hours sleeping (if he’s lucky), 1.5 days off, and family time with whatever is left over.  Basically, he’ll be either at work, or asleep, so he doesn’t care where we go.  For my lovely friends and family who keep asking “Where you going for Residency?”

Lemme break it down for ya:

SEPTEMBER 2009: Submit applications electronically.

OCTOBER 2009:  Wait.  Find out who liked Rick’s application and wants to interview with him. We decide which interviews we want to take. (This can be a extremely expensive process.)

NOVEMBER-JANUARY 09-2010: Interview season.  Fly/drive around the country, interviewing. I hope to join Rick on some of these interviews so I can check out the cities.

JANUARY 15 2010: Submit Rank Order Lists. It is based on the applicant’s preference and the programs do the same for their applicants. (With 1 being our first preference, we list our top 1-20 programs that interviewed Rick.)

MARCH 15th 2010: NRMP (National Residency Match Program) conducts a residency match to optimize the chances that both programs and applicants match with their most highly ranked choices: You picked them and they picked you.

MARCH 18 2010: MATCH DAY! (You find out if you matched to your 1st choice, 2nd choice or 8th choice. This is a scary day for a lot of people.  You have no idea where you’ll be moving in 2 months.  It could be Yuma Arizona, or Kalamazoo MI.)

On this day, all the 4th year medical students and their families gather in one location, at the medical school, while someone passes out white envelopes, that have your match information inside.  It’s highly anticipated day for everyone and their families.  There are many tears of joy and some tears of disappoinment.

I just found this bit of interesting info:  In 2008, 4,214 programs participated in the match and a total of 25,066 positions were offered: total applicants were 35,956, 15,692 of whom were from accredited US schools and 20,264 who were independent. How’s that for fierce competition for a match? Of the almost 36,000 applicants, 28,737 submitted rank lists, of whom 20,940 matched. And for those who don’t match,  they will now enteringing the twilight zone, aka the “Scramble!” (Everyone HOPES and PRAYS they don’t have to scramble!)

APRIL-JUNE 2010: Start hunting for a house to live in and move!

MAY 23 2010: Graduation

I am VERY excited for this new chapter in our lives.  Our destiny is in someone else’s hands.  I look forward to meeting new people, moving into a new place, making new friends and seeing new things.  The United States is facinating, and I want to see it all!  No matter where we go, Rick will receive great training, to make him a devoted doctor of Oncology. (Only 6 more years of training post med school… HA HA HA.  😦 )