The Match
Woke up to a 70-degree blue-bird day, cooked a nice pancake breakfast for my friends and mixed up some adult beverages to cut the tension (mimosas, "Irish" coffee, Bushmills, etc). Then we suffered through 2 hours of meetings...with boxes of envelopes sitting just a few yards away and our fate sealed inside.
So then we headed outside to wait for the clock to strike noon. Anxiety was 11/10 on the pain scale, so we had some STAT car-bombs before the speeches started. Lots of praise and this is the day you've been waiting for, and dropping of some very big name programs which culminated with the line "well it's 12 o'clock somewhere". Line up alphabetically, try not to vomit, get your envelope, try not to vomit. Breathe in, close your eyes and realize that you've been waiting for this one moment for the past 8 years, try not to vomit.
Open your envelope...feeling the anticipation build, the hours of reading and studying and not sleeping and being made to do stupid things by obnoxious people.
breathe...open eyes and feel the weight of the past four years
ZOMFGWTFBBQ!!!!...I'm going to learn how to be an Emergency Physcian at my #5 (Undisclosed location in upstate NY). A little bit let down because I'm still not home in Boston, but definitely someplace I liked alot! Told my friends and we all hugged/high-fived. Called the fiancé and she cried. Called mom and she cried. Called dad and he said good job. Then got down to partying.
Then there was the matter of about a dozen unattended bottles of champagne, an equally unattended keg of local microbrew and 30 of my favorite med school peeps needing some lunch. barbequing. Then we headed down to NYC for our post-match party via school bus and I have never been more afraid for the future of Medicine in America...a little bit scary. None the less, we survived
Marathon Training/Running
The weeks leading into the National Sun-Trust marathon were also the weeks leading up to match...and there was much drinking and eating and merrymaking (and less running). My taper was more like a huge party so going into the race expo I wasn't feeling quite up to the full 26.2...so I chickened out and just ran the half with my friend who hurt his knee early into the training. I clocked in around 2 hours and felt pretty great despite missing three planned water stops and a gel stop. Lesson learned: always carry some food for when the aid station runs out.
I'll keep you posted on marathon effort number 2 scheduled for the Marine Corps Marathon...cause why not try to cram in a whole bunch of running with the start of residency???
Family Stuff
My dad, due to the recent turn in the economy couldn't find a job on the east coast so now he's Bostonian in Oregon with his new job. Mom isn't taking it well, but she's managing to suffer through the empty house. It's brought up all kinds of issues and made the match in upstate NY that much more difficult because mom wanted the fiancé and I to move in with her if I matched into any of the MA programs I applied to. Such is life and we're reassessing what to do with her over the next few months. And my brother got a motorcycle...while I was rotating through ortho clinic with all of the old bikers who can't go through a metal detector because they did something stupid.
Wilderness Medicine Preparations
I'll be spending 3 weeks out in Utah on a wilderness medicine elective and getting that all pieced together has been kind of exciting! 1 week in the Wasatch, 1 week of whitewater and 1 week in the desert around Moab. Gonna be awesome and if I'll be posting as many pictures as I can! It's also brought out the inner gear slut and has given me complete leeway to buy whatever I think I might need.
Feelings about the end of med school
It's tough. I've met some of my favorite people over the past 4 years and our relationships have been galvanized by suffering through long overnight calls, stupidly ridiculous amounts of reading/studying together, hours of boredom waiting for things to happen in the hospital, lack of being able to get away to see family/friends all the time and the stupidly juvenile things we do to entertain ourselves. At the same time, I'm ready to move my life ahead and stop reliving college with binge drinking, lack of income and unfocused academic requirements. It'll be nice to be able to finally focus on the areas of medicine that I'm interested in and stop having to constantly move around from hospital to hospital, subject to disparate subject and to just get into a routine of seeing patients, reading and living my life again. Plus I'm ready to finally get a chance to live with the sainted fiancé even if that means another bar exam that she has to take. Plus I'm really getting sick of living off of ramen, mac and cheese and very few veggies!
Anyway, that's probably enough of my blathering. But before I go I'll leave you with one of the funniest quotes of the past month:
Young 20's patient in Ortho clinic has some serious hardware in his arm for a humerus fracture that he suffered after he let his ex-girlfriend drive his "souped-up Infiniti" into a wall at 60 mph.
Attending: You probably won't ever be able to fully extend that arm like you were before. Keep up with the PT and we'll see you in a month. (Exits)
Patient: Thanks doc. (Under his breath but getting louder) F*** her. Stupid f*** *****. She had to drive my f***ing car into a f***ing wall and break my f***ing arm. (and on and on and on). I'm going to get an Escalade and a bat and go over to her house and break her f***ing arm and her car and see how she likes it.
Me: Hey man, don't do anything stupid or illegal, she's not worth ending up in jail for.
Pt: Yes she is, f*** that f***ing s***. She's f***ed with like 8 other guys the same way...I warn everyone I know. her name is ________
Me: I'll do my best to avoid her...or at least not let her drive my Corolla into a wall.
Pt: So I'm going to Miami for a week to (do unsavory things to women, and drink and drive fancy cars)...do I have to worry about this scar? What's your medical advice?
Me: 1. wear a condom, 2. sunscreen for the scar, 3. don't let crazy chicks drive your car
