This is Match Week, when all the good little medical students get to find out where they’re going to be indentured for the next few years. Today (Monday) we got an e-mail telling us a simple yes or no, so that those who don’t match can enter the Scramble tomorrow. The rest have to wait until Thursday.
Mine was a yes!
Of course, I’m doing internal medicine and not pediatric neurooncoorthosurgery, so the chances that I wouldn’t match were negligible, and I’m fairly sure I’ll get one of my top two choices (Greensboro and Wilmington, NC, respectively).
Still, it feels nice to officially enter the FYBIGMI portion of the year. That is, any unwanted tasks for the rest of the year can be deflected with a simply “FYBIGMI”–Fuck You, Buddy, I Got My Internship!
I’ll be sure to post my final match results on Thursday, or as soon thereafter as I am sober enough to do so. (That could be a while.) Thanks to everyone who has listened to me ruminate about this for all these months.
Congratulations, DocJ!! I didn’t see any of the previous messages about this, but let us know where you end up.
[slight hijack] When I was in law school, one of my roommates (she was at UCSF) didn’t match. I understand that’s somewhat of a major tragedy for med students…do you know what percentage of students don’t match? She was brilliant and had social skills (would have interviewed well) so I always wondered why it happened to her. She ended up doing a year of medicine (not what she had wanted), and going through the process the next year, when she did match (in surgery, I think). [/slight hijack]
It’s only a handful of students who don’t match–at a guess, I’d say less than 5%. Usually, it’s because the student is trying to get into something really competitive, like radiology or orthopedic surgery.
It is sort of a tragedy. If you don’t match, you have to scramble, which means you get on the phone today at noon when the list of programs that didn’t fill comes out and try to find someone who wants you. It’s no fun.
Then again, I know one psych resident who didn’t go through the match at all–he just scrambled. He wasn’t the best applicant, I don’t think, and he really didn’t care where he ended up, and psych is about as non-competitive as you get, so he decided to just scramble. Worked out OK for him.
Congrat Doc!
A couple med student buddies came by SO’s house last night and invited all of us to their 9 am-11:30 am keg party today.
Today was match day for them. Apparently EVERYONE goes to the noon ceremony drunk as a skunk. Is this common everywhere, or is it just a backward South Carolina thing?
Also-they all ante up $ and put it in a kitty which is won by the last person to receive their match, as a consolation prize for having to wit and sweat so long.
Yes, getting a good early swerve on is tradition on Match Day at most med schools. Last night is all fairly hazy to me at this point; I do remember that I was riding from one party to the next with our class president at one point, when she decided she wanted to go to the nudie bar instead. I think karaoke was involved later on, and several of us apparently made it back over to my place where we ordered an extra-large cheese stix from Mad Mushroom and fell asleep before we could eat much of it.
Of course, the nice thing about starting so early is that if you have the good sense to stop drinking early in the night (which I apparently did), the morning-after damage is not what it could be.
Pediatric neurooncoorthosurgery is our fictitious hyper-competitive residency. Its opposite is the East Butt Crack County General Boil Removal Program.
We have the same tradition of the “dollar in the pitcher” as people come up to get their envelopes, with the money going to the last person drawn. We also had several giveaways from the bar where we held the event, including a pitcher of beer that went to the quietest, most reserved girl in the class. She declined the audience’s urgings to kill it off on stage.
I was very close on my estimate of how many people scramble; in our class of 95 or so, 5 people scrambled. They all got into someplace they wanted to be, though, so it worked out well.
Congratulations on getting your first choice of residency! I have a question for you: What is the difference between an Internal Medicine physician and a general or Family Practice physician? I mean, besides the fact that Family Practice physicians will see children and Internal Medicine physicians won’t. I still haven’t been able to figure how the difference.
Congratulations on getting your first choice in the Match, DoctorJ ! Enjoy these last few weeks before your residency starts; take some vacation time if you can.
J’s probably too hung over to reply coherently, so I will.
An internist trains for 3 years after med school graduation in an internal medicine residency at a teaching hospital. He does lots of general internal (adult) medicine, cardiology, neurology, infectious disease, pulmonology, etc. Then when he/she is done, they get to call themselves internists, and practice general adult medicine. They generally don’t see kids, they don’t do OB, but on the whole, they probably take care of sicker people.
An FP trains for 3 years after med school graduation in a family practice residency at a teaching hospital. They also do general medicine, cardiology,etc but do less of it than an internist. Instead, they’re also doing pediatrics, orthopedics, obstetrics, and neonatal intensive care too. In the end, they call themselves Family practitioners, and see kids, and many deliver babies, apply casts, etc. In short, they care for the entire family, but probably take care of fewer really really sick people than internists.
