ER and things

In the ED rotation now.
Long weekend (two 12-hr shifts).
Sutured 2 lacerations today. Need to be better, be more organized, more confident.
Went 0 for 2 on the venous sticks today. Quite the disappointment. There's still more veins out there.
Then lost 4 times on the Volleyball field today, despite a valiant and a very much improved effort by my team.

But I feel good.

In other news, Match is coming up. Yea. Cue ulcer.
For those of you who don't know what Match is, let me s'plain...
It is that fateful moment when all the medical programs we medical students applied to get to tell us that we are hired!
So as a med student, I apply to X number of programs. They, in turn, receive many med school applicants (myself and the thousands of others applying for a job) for interview. In the end, there can be only one!!! Wait, got movie side-tracked...
In the end, each medical program participating in the match ranks their medical applicants from 1 to whatever. And each one of us applicants get to rank the programs we applied to from 1 to whatever, as well. So, a match happens when a program and an applicant rank each other evenly. This is done by a big computer in the sky. Whatever. The rub is this, I'm competing against many (hundreds) medical students for a limited number of positions (it can be as low as 1 or as high as 60, mine is between 6-24) in my top ranked programs and each of my top ranked programs gets to generate their own rank list of applicants.
Now, I interviewed in 12 pediatric residency programs. I'm ranking all of them. It is my hope that my top ranked programs put me within their high rankings, so come match day, I get into a residency program that I like and of course, a job come June/July.
So there are multiple types of matches (military, San Francisco, ACGME, AOA, etc). I am going for the allopathic match despite me being a DO student. It affords me greater geographic range and more options for residency (not all residencies are the same). Disadvantages, both DO and MD students can apply in the allopathic match, so the competition gets larger and stiffer.
This is the ulcer part: Worst case scenario, I don't match and I have to scramble, meaning I get on the phone and call every program that has an available opening to see if they'll take me. It's not very pleasant, nor pretty, and it certainly puts you in a program that is not necessarily your specialty let alone choosing.
Allo match goes down some time in March (DO or AOA match happens in Feb). Until then, I cross my fingers, write my thank you letters, and pray to God I didn't screw up my interviews/rank list.

And that's the update.

Song of the day: "Kids" - MGMT

2011, here we go!

Finished my ICU month, fairly unscathed.  Learned a few things which were really good.  Going to do an Emergency Medicine rotation month next.  Wish me luck!  The rest of my 2011 is also looking good so far.  My last interview (Massachusetts) is in sight.  The end of my interview road is near and I am really happy its close by.  All this traveling and spending is really taking its toll on me and my car.  I'm also in the process now of making my rank list of residency programs that I want to go into.  Yet another stressor and source of headache for me, but it must be done.  Match day is this coming March.  Wish me luck!
In other news, I joined an intramural volleyball league that should help me be less sedentary.  Lots of fun and makes my weekends less crazy.  And also there are other new changes that are making me smile more nowadays, so that is always good.
That's all for now.
New Year's Resolution: Less procrastination.  Seriously!

Song of the day: "Every Night Is Friday Night (Without You)" - The Old 97s

2011

Happy New Year!
Hope all is well with you and that this year will be better than the last!

P.S.
Keep those resolutions, eh? Cool!

SongS of the day (that's right boys and girls, you get a 2-fer!): "Mr. Sandman" and "If You Think You Need Some Lovin'" - Pomplamoose



If these nutters seem familiar to you, they're in the new Hyundai Holiday Commercials.  I love them!