Registered Sex Offender

So today I was hit on by a patient. This is a common occurrence at the hospital I am rotating at, as it tailors to a mostly male population, and most of those are the 'dirty old man' type which is a bit endearing to me. However, when rotating on the psych lockdown unit, endearing is a little harder to come by. 

I was running around, finishing up some MDQ's and Mini Mentals on my patients, trying to get some lunch before class at 4 when this patient, who wasn't mine started talking to me, which led to a corny pick up line which I brushed off, which led to him following me around as I moved between different rooms and patients.  I finally escaped to the physician work room where patients don't have access. 

The thing is that at first I didn't know this patient, until at one point a staff member called him by name, and as I ran the name through my head I remembered at staff meeting that morning his name being mentioned  and that he was not to be assigned to a female, but I couldn't remember why. I was a bit unerved, but finished my work and headed to class where I found another student rotating with me who was on the team handling this patient. I mentioned to her what happened and she reminded me that he was a registered sex offender. That will remind a person that you're not invincible. 

The Match (not the kind you light after using the restroom)

So it's been a while since I last posted. I can't really say that I have been busy, but I have been lazy. My brain has taken a vacation. However, I want to keep this thing as current as possible. 

One of the reasons that I began this blog is to explain to my non-med school family and friends what I am doing for the next year or so and how it works, so this is one of those posts. 

The Match is like The Wedding Day of medical school. It's this climax of years of work (and months of specific efforts) that just solidifies one's future, but really doesn't mean much because it's what comes after the match that is your future. The Match is just the day that you find out where you will go. 

Match day is a day in march where every US senior med student and all others applying for US residencies find out what residency program they got into. Some people find out the location where they will match while others find out both location and specialty (for those who double apply). 

The specific effort that I wrote about that comes before Match Day is applying and interviewing. In September, I will start to apply to residency programs. They will look at my application and either offer me an interview or not. I will likely apply to 20 programs and hope to get interviews at at least 10 places. I am sure that I want peds so my life is a little bit easier. If I was undecided between peds and say psych, my life would be more difficult because I would have to apply to both types of programs without letting the other know I was double applying which would mean more apps, more interviews, and more money. Alternatively, if I wanted something more competitive, like ortho, I would have to apply to TONS more programs; additionally, I would have a back-up plan if I didn't get ortho and would still have to double apply which means more apps, interviews, and money. 

So my life is a little nicer because I know what I want to do without a doubt and it's within my range of possibilities (meaning my scores and leadership make me a good candidate). 

So after all of the applications and interviews (which occur from November to January). I sit down and evaluate my rank list. I look at all the schools I interviewed at and rank them from 1-20 (or however many there are). 1 is the place I would most like to be, 2 is second best and so on. You don't have to rank every place that you interviewed; if you really hated a place and would rather not have a job than be there, then you don't rank it...but that's a lot of hate there!)

The programs do the same and rank the people that they interviewed from 1-.... then the computer matches the rank lists of the schools and the students, with the student's preference higher. It's a bit confusing but say I put Mt.Jewett Children's Hospital (hehe) as my #1, and Mt.Jewett being so small only has 3 openings, but they liked me because I am a hometown gal and put me #3, I would get in. However, say they made me #4, after Sally, Bob, and Jess; well Sally put Liberty Children's as #1 and Liberty put her as #1, so she is going to Liberty, which means I am still within the 3, but if Sally, Bob, and Jess all put Mt.Jewett Children's pretty high, then I wouldn't get it. I hope that illustration helps. 

So on Monday of match week, you find out if you matched, which means you have a job next year. You don't find out where, just that you have a job. If you don't match, then Tuesday is Scramble day, which means you go into the Dean's office, they print off a list of programs that didn't fill up. Say Mt.Jewett Children's only got 2 people that were interested and had a space open, they would be on the list. You would call them, send your CV and recommendation letters and anything else they wanted via fax and do phone interviews. Basically you are trying to get a job that day in one of these few open spots. It's hecka stressful and not recommended. This year was worse because there were a lot fewer openings. There were like several hundred openings and several thousands of people scrambling for them. People scrambling at my school were having trouble getting through to the programs. 

So basically, scrambling is bad and not what you want to be doing. After all the money you spend on interviews and apps, you don't want to waste it by having to scramble. This year was a bad year in the so many people don't have jobs for next year, because they didn't scramble anywhere. It's really sad - it's because the government pushed med schools to increase class sizes due to the demand for doctors, and schools did so resulting in an increase of 1000 additional US graduates per year. However, this was not reflected in residencies. Program sizes didn't increase and some are decreasing now because of the economy. So basically there is a problem in the system that makes my time leading up to the match more important. No longer can a graduate from a US medical school be guaranteed a job...scary huh??

So anyway, back to the happiness, on Thursday we all get together and get an envelope that tells us where we match to and of course what specialty if we didn't already know. It's a joyful time for some who got their first choice, especially if they thought it was out of reach, and it's a hard time for some who didn't get the place or possibly specialty they wanted. Basically when you apply, it's a binding contract with the program that you will go wherever you match to, no change of mind or heart allowed. So it can be a bittersweet time, but it is definitive which I like. It gives your future path....and then we go out and have a big party (which Abby has been planning for 2 years!!!!) :) 

So that's the match in a nutshell. It's definitely not complete, but at least shows the process in an overview so when I say it's match day, you know what I am talking about or when I talk about my rank list, you'll be in the loop. 

Questions??