One year ago was our match time when we found out Dave would be part of the UCSD neurosurgery program. Dave spent the morning anxiously pacing around the house and held all the phones in his pocket (in case the call was to a cell phone or a home phone). He got a phone call at around 7:30am, I think, and from my side of the line, this is what I heard.
"Yes, this is David"
"Yes"
"Ohhhh, really (very surprised).....yes, that was one of my top choices . .. . .it was #4"
From then on I wasn't really listening because I knew it was SD and I was so happy. A week earlier the Petteys and Johnsons had both matched to their home towns and I was so disappointed to think that we would be going to some crazy cold place across the country (#1 and #2). We had a fun day and went out to ice cream to celebrate and then out to dinner later that night. It was one of the best days of 2007!
In the end we guess the match did choose better for us then we would have chosen for ourselves, as is sometimes said. We love being in SD, and Dave feels the program here will allow him to pursue his professional goals better than the other programs out there. We are still wondering what possessed us to rank it as low as we did.
The program here is pretty small. It is a 1 and then 2 year, meaning they match 2 new residents one year and then 1 the next and so on. Last year was a 2 year, so this year they're just taking one person. We have been anxious to hear how match went this year and wondered who UCSD got. Well this year, UCSD didn't match anyone. It was one of those fluke things that sometimes happens. I guess there were a couple of other programs that missed a match (Stanford, Chicago, Northwestern) and there were also a few good students who fell through the cracks, as there always are. It'll be interesting to see if they fill the spot or just leave it open until someone they really like comes along. There is always a fair amount of shuffle with NS residencies over the course of the years so I'm sure it'll all work out in the end.
3 comments:
I've wondered how the whole thing works. How long is the residency? Is it like Grey's Anatomy at all, where they are all fighting just to get into surgeries so they can hold a retractor for eight hours? Has Dave done any surgery yet? I'm fascinated by it all.
I've been curious about early match specialties, like NS. Will UCSD get a scrambling student? Or will all those scramblers try to get into general surgery prelim years and try again next year?
I'm not jealous of the competitive nature of a lot of the early match specialties, but I would love to know already where we'll be next year. I'm glad it worked out so well for you guys.
It's fun to hear your match day feelings and experience. We feel the same way about the match picking better than we could (for internship year). I often wonder how we ever ranked Riverside so low...and am so grateful it ended up the way it did. I'm happy to hear Dave is liking his program!
P.S Isn't Ca grand?
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