Happy Residency Fate Day aka Match Day 2013!

I'm matched!

And if you have matched too, congratulations!

If you are looking for the SGU Match List then look no further. Of course it is a work in progress but it is being updated so keep refreshing. For those that matched things look good! Congrats on all of your hard work and the fruition of your labor. Enjoy today, you deserve it!

For those that did not and were unsuccessful in SOAP my sincere and heartfelt sympathies to you. It is not fair or right that you should finish four years of medical school and not match into residency, it angers me that SGU cannot do more to help its students and that it is expected that a certain number will not match and that this is "okay". It is not and I am sorry! Please know that I do care and realize that it could have been me... Keep the faith and fix what needs to be fixed, next year you will be successful.

As for me, it is official, we will be moving to Texas as I have matched in one of my top choices at UT Houston in Child Neurology. I am very excited and feel that this program has many strengths and will be a good fit for me! I am a little hesitant to move to TX and am not sure what I think of Houston but we are doing this. That being said, I'm accepting any and all advise on where to live, dog parks to visit, how to make the most out of Houston, etc. We may need to adjust to the humidity and hot weather but I'm sure we will manage. What can you tell me about Houston dear reader?

I'm off to celebrate but just wanted to let everyone know, in case you don't have Facebook or access to me that way. Congrats again to all my classmates and thank you for your support and encouragement.

Match Day 2012

Happy Match Day! If you are looking for the SGU list, you've come to the right place. Of course it usually takes SGU a little while to get the complete list up. But keep checking. To all my matched classmates, congrats! If you are wondering what exactly this "match" that I keep referring to is than let me direct you here. I'm sure I'll have thoughts/opinions and more comments once I see the list and hear where people are going but for now I just want to congratulate everyone and reflect for a moment... In one year I hope to be preparing to find out my fate. Oh the things we do for love (of medicine in this case.)

no words

I never considered myself as having a problem with words. I love to write, and it has always seemed to come easily for me. But then I get to IM and my H&Ps seem on the skimpy side. For someone who was regularly told her emails were too long and that the essay only needed to be 500 words not 2000 this is an odd place to find myself. I should be able to write paragraphs about my differential diagnosis but I tend to focus on the most likely and leave out the obvious details because I think they are obvious, or written two sentences above in the labs, or I just talked about it in the HPI but I guess repetition is okay if it is important. I think I'm just modeling what I've read but just because your resident does it doesn't make it right. So I'm working on this. Also, I don't know if I just have an extra attentive Attending or if my pronunciations have been awful lately but I've been corrected when I say words too.
Random examples:
-Rhales is British so the a is an ah not a hard a.
-Triamcinolone (antibiotic) in my head has an extra syllable. And why is this called tack cream? I really don't get it.
-Petechiea (the ch is pronounced as k not a ch)

So I vow to be more thorough, more verbose and work on my pronunciations. And maybe learn some medicine while I'm at it.

I was reflecting on the patient's I've seen so far and I think I've hit all the major organ systems.
Here is the short list:
HTN (only essential)
CHF (right and left sided)
Valvular Heart Disease
Afib vs Aflutter
CAD r/o ACS
COPD
Asthma
Pneumonia
Renal Failure (acute and chronic)
Liver Cirrhosis
Hepatitis (Hep C, Viral, Tylenol OD)
Stroke
Alzheimer's
DM (but all type II so far)
Psoriasis
Reynaud's Syndrome
Panic Disorder
Depression
Bipolar Disorder
Substance Abuse (cocaine, alcohol, narcotics)

Not bad for one month into IM... I wonder what I'll see today? Whatever it is, I'll try to use my words.

*On an completely unrelated note- Happy Match Week to my SGU colleagues and other MS IVs that are anxiously waiting for Friday. Here is a link to the list. Right now it only has pre-matched students but the Canadians will be added soon and then everyone else on Friday or as soon as SGU updates it... Fingers crossed for everyone. I feel nervous this year, I can't even imagine the suspense of next year.

Happy Match Day!

So, today is the day that all fourth year medical students await. Today decides their fate. You see on match day one is "matched" with a residency program and it isn't until match day that the medical student finds out where she will be completing her residency. Of course the medical student knows that she will be matched to one of the programs on her rank list (and if she didn't, she would know this and have scrambled, more on that in minute.) She has interviewed and carefully constructed her list, but it may be 20 programs long and involve five different cities and states so it is with trepidation, excitement and anticipation that match day arrives.

I was with Dr. Boyfriend on his match day. Most US medical schools, his included, hold a special ceremony where everyone is given an envelope and at noon they open the said envelope and smile, scream or cry with relief or disappointment. I was with Dr. Boyfriend and his classmates and most of them matched to one of their top programs (like #1 or #2 or maybe #3 or #4, rarely further down the list. Plus 96% of US medical students match so the scramble is the exception.) Anyhow, I was with him and he matched at his top choice in OB/GYN and it happened to be where I was living/working so we were both happy, relieved and excited. Most of his classmates were also happy. I remember one girl who matched to her #1 choice (but for some reason in her mind she thought she was going to match further down the list to a NYC program.) Anyhow, there she was crying and upset and we all wondered what to say, "I'm sorry you matched to your #1 program????"  Well fast forward a few years and she is married and very happy at said program but the thing is, you never know, and the match is out of your control is so many ways.  It shapes the next three-five plus years of your life and this decision comes via a computer.

So back to that day of Dr. Boyfriend's match. His graduating class was around 100 students so there were just a couple that had to scramble. I know that they all did scramble and I forget details but I think someone matched for categorical but needed a pre-lim year and hadn't matched, so he scrambled and ended up in Hawaii. We all laughed and thought, well that isn't too bad, I mean it is Hawaii for a year! So yeah, that has been my personal experience with Match Day.

So now six years later I am in the middle of medical school, but it is not a US school and so Match Day for my types goes a little differently. I still have two more years until I will be the one matching but I pay attention to my upperclassmen and where they match, how many match, etc. It is still early in the day so SGU has not yet updated the list but here is the link. Right now it only contains those that pre-matched (aka signed outside of the match, this is one of the only advantages to being a IMG), matched to a Canadian program (their match was last week) or matched into a program that uses an early match system (mainly competitive programs like ENT, Plastics, Ophthamology so that students that don't match can try to again with the regular match in a different field.) Anyhow the list is just a fraction of what it will be. So keep checking if you are interested.

So far I haven't heard too much about students scrambling, but then again I'm two years out and don't really know that many upperclassmen. I guess only time will tell. In a given year we are told that 85% of SGU student match. Now that includes everyone and being an international medical school not everyone tries to match. And we know that some sign outside of the match. But there are of course an unlucky few... So, fingers crossed for all of those matching today, that they did in fact match or were able to scramble.

So, about the scramble. On Monday those students that did not match were notified. And on Tuesday a list of program that had not filled was released. Last year there were 8,794 unmatched applicants and only 1,060 unfilled spots. So if you are one of the unlucky few and not taking in account anything else, you have a 1:8 chance of scrambling for one of the coveted unfilled spots. And it is a scramble, the student and any help she can recruit calls, phones, faxes, emails and begs for an interview in hopes of gaining a spot. This is another time when being a US medical student has its advantages. If you need to scramble and chances are, you don't,  most likely your Dean will make some calls on your behalf. If you go to SGU, well good luck with that. Needless to say, you don't want to scramble.

I cannot even fathom what it would be like to finish four years of medical school and then not have a place to go for residency. This is the real underbelly of being an IMG, what they don't tell you at the open house and what you hope is only a rumor or thing that happens to those less fortunate students that go to lesser schools than the Harvard of the Caribbean. Now it is looking a little bit better for next year. The NRMP is introducing SOAP which from what I gather will be a controlled scramble, basically a 2nd match. To read about these changes see the NRMP website and SOAP pdf. I don't know if it will help IMGs like myself but I guess time will tell. I think it will help the highest qualified applicants secure a spot and will take much of the "luck" out of it. Sure the US students will be served first, but that is how it is now anyhow.

So to all those matching today, I hope that Match Day gives you much to celebrate. Go enjoy a green beer and cheers, you've worked hard for today!

Here, There and Beyond

On my island the only real news is that we are still in a draught and that midterms are just a week away. I did take a short study break on Wednesday celebrate St. Patty's with a few friends and some cupcakes... I love to bake, fourth term may be busy, but I have yet to give up my baking.

Also, this past Thursday was "Match Day" and although I still don't know any 4th year students I am always curious as to how SGU did in the match and were they are going for residency. If you are interested, here is the list.

Finally, the health care bill passed and while not perfect and saddened that the abortion language stole the stage I am happy it passed. I'm with the Nuns on this one.

Have a fabulous day, and happy Spring!

Don't Study with a Migraine

Now there are probably many reasons while its a bad idea to study when your head is throbbing. For starters the light is too bright, in fact you can see the fluorescent light flickering from across the room, that the sound of the ant crawling on the floor is annoying you and you can smell someone, somewhere cooking something that is making you want to be sick... However, while a perfectly quiet and dark room with A/C would have been nice, somehow I decided to take some drugs and soldier through. After all the pain was somewhat relieved and I should be able to deal with the rest, right? 

A look at my notes the next day suggests differently. I was outlining biochem. Somehow I'd turned the mutagen, nitrous acid into nitric oxide. Now, I have to Wiki this because I swear NO is an important drug, a brochodilator, component of Viagra, etc, etc. So how is it a carcinogen? Well its not, at least not unless you have chronic exposure of it, according to Wiki. So I go back to my real notes and low and behold, the mutagen that Dr. C wanted to teach us about was nitrous acid. (Which I would stay away from btw, that bacon you had for breakfast, just may increase your chance of  colorectal cancer.) So, I'm pretty sure I made a few other such errors. (And considering I took my Histo midterm while in a similar state I guess I should be estactic that I actually passed that exam. Yikes!) So now I have to redo the migraine study lecture and see what fun things I may have created in my semi-lucid state. So the moral of the story, don't study with a migraine.  Or else you may confuse yourself.

In, other developments, Match Day was last Thursday. Congrats to all who matched. In case you don't know the Match is when you find out where you will be doing your residency. It is a big deal for 4th year medical students as it determines where you will be working and living for the next 3, 4 or 5 years and I'll have more to say on this later. But I was a little disappointed that there was no mention of Match Day at SGU. I know we are kind of separated from our 3rd and 4th year classmates as they are in the US and UK doing rotations but I guess I expected the website to be updated with the list, or something. But no, I had to dig around and wait several days before I could even find the link. If you are curious, SGU's match list is here. I'm surprised that out of 400, only 1 was neurology... I don't think its become the new dermatology in the the last year, but only 1/400, odd.  For an interesting read about Match Day, and one of my new favorite blogs (not because she calls herself Dr. Icedlatte, but it doesn't hurt) look here.

That's all I've got. Time to tackle the day, hopefully without the migraine. Until next time...