Matchmaker, matchmaker, Make me a Match

Well my, oh my, how things have changed since I last wrote. My world has been turned over, shaken up, and completely changed in a matter of 1.5 weeks. How do I even start with explaining what happened? I guess we will start at the beginning:

Once upon a time there was a medical student named Hannah who was in the midst of her 3rd and 4th years of medical school. She would battle the evils of illness and injury alongside a different doctor each month. People would ask her, "Are you a doctor yet?" or "So you're going to be a nurse?" or "So are you still in the classroom?" or "So you're an intern? Or are you a resident? By the way, what's the difference?" She'd answer these questions the best she could, but it was hard for people to understand the process of medical school training. Many people thought she would be a great pediatrician, because she loved kids and always had a baby in her hands. When she started school she thought the same thing, but as clinicals went on she became more confused. She developed a passion for mental health and seemed to have a real knack for connecting with that patient population, so then she thought about psychiatry. She wasn't enjoying family medicine much, until early in her fourth year when she rotated with an older doctor in Oak Grove who drank coffee with his longtime patients, could treat almost any illness, and who clearly loved his job. She became really confused and started praying to God that He would shine some light on her future path.

Around this same time period of her clinicals, her husband's ministry at a local church was thriving and the church was growing exponentially. Many baptisms were performed, and the pews were filling up on Sunday mornings. Change was happening and it was an exciting time for the church. A vote took place to build an addition, but this was a big venture for the church and they required a lot of trust and leadership from their pastor. He and his wife prayed for direction and verbally committed to the church that they were in it for the long haul and would not leave the church anytime soon. For the wife this meant that she was committing to stay in Kansas City for her residency program after medical school, but she trusted it would all work out.

Through the summer and fall of her 4th year of medical school, the young student doctor began applying to programs in KC for residency. She was still confused on direction, but she also knew limiting herself to one city meant the smartest thing to do was apply to different specialties so that she was applying to enough programs. For a reference, the typical medical student picks one specialty and applies all over the country to AT LEAST 20 programs. She knew it was risky, but she trusted God would take care of her since He called her family to stay in KC. She applied to 4 programs in KC, 1 peds, 1 psych, and 2 family medicine programs. Although there were a few more programs she could have applied to to increase the number and chances of matching, she decided against it because she had heard about the programs and just wasn't impressed and decided they weren't even worth applying to. The interview season began and all 4 programs interviewed her. They went okay, although programs did seem to dislike her strategy to apply only in KC to multiple specialties. Where the student really thrived was on her rotations at 3 of the 4 of these programs. She worked hard, got along with residents, wrote great notes, and the faculty seemed to like her work ethic. She truly believed this would help her win a spot in KC.

She was still struggling with what she would rank as her first choice. She prayed up until applications were due in February for what God wanted her to pursue. None of the programs felt right to her. One she just didn't like, although the people and faculty were nice it didn't seem like a good fit. Another was busy and she learned a lot and performed well, but again she didn't feel a strong bond with the residents. She thought she'd be fine if she matched there, but she didn't think it would be her top choice. The third hospital she didn't get to do a rotation at, but her interviews went well and she felt okay. When she left that interview day, she wasn't wowed and felt like the program was lacking in important areas. She also did not have any sort of bond with the current residents. She got asked in the interview if she would be able to come to social events since she was married and her husband was busy, and that didn't settle well with her but she shrugged it off and figured she'd cross that bridge when it came. The final program was huge, prestigious, and VERY busy. She felt like she was a rockstar during her time there, and was told by faculty they'd love to have her, the residents gave her great feedback and said they'd rank her high, and she even got a pat on the back during a residency meeting for handling the patient's well. She left the rotation thinking she did great, but during her time there she sensed the residents were short with one another and seemed too stressed to be cordial half of the time. She left her last day saying she had a good time there, but wouldn't be upset if she didn't ever come back there. Where did this leave the young doctor when these are her only choices? It left her with prayer and asking God for direction.

She prayed and prayed in December, January, and February, and finally in February through prayer and advisement by an amazing doctor she felt the call to pediatrics. She loved children and dreamed of specializing in behavior and devlopment or child abuse and neglect to serve foster and adopted children and their families. It seemed like a great combination of pediatrics and psychiatry! The children's hospital was her top choice, followed by the rest and she felt 100% peace about the decision. She typically was a worrier and stewed over the outcome, but during the month of waiting she felt confident in decision and told her friends and husband she had zero worry about matching in KC. Her resume was good, she had good clinicals, and the interviews went okay so she trusted God to match her.

Many of you may be wondering what the heck is Match week? Well, IT'S ONLY THE MOST IMPORTANT PERIOD IN A MEDICAL SCHOOL STUDENT'S CAREER! In short, you send a rank listed of the most desired to least desired programs you'd like and each program does this for the people they interview, and then some computer system takes a few minutes and matches or doesn't match you to a program. It's a bit more complicated than that, but if you aren't ranked high enough on any list you won't match. The Friday before Match week you get an email telling you instructions for the case you wouldn't match. The young student laughed and said I'm not worried at all, because God has given me a peace I'll match. Again, this is weird for worry-wart student.

Monday March 17 rolled around and she was casually checking her email when she got an email about the match. She read it at work and her eyes couldn't believe the words, " We are sorry you didn't match to any program." She was SO confused and bolted out of work to head to school. Her immediate reaction was anger, how could these programs not rank me high enough?! IT MUST BE A MISTAKE! She zoomed to school and found the list of unfilled programs, and her scramble week began. To be continued....