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.

only a day / countdown recap

Last, but certainly not least, on my 12 day countdown bring us to the horse capitol of the world. Home of blue grass music, bourbon and the Wildcats.

Lexington, KY

I'll say it, it was a pleasant surprise on my interview trail. I spent a few days and thoroughly enjoyed my visit.

And should you ever find yourself in Lexington, here is Spice Island's Guide-
Where to Eat: 
-Shakespeare and Company, a fun place for dinner, drinks or dessert!
-Doodles Cafe, best bet for brunch!

What to do: 
-See at movie at Kentucky Theater, a  throwback movie theatre where you will be treated not with advertisements or previews but real live organ music while you wait for the movie to start!
-Visit Horse Country by going to Keeneland Horse Track, I ran a 5K while I was there but I'm sure attending a horse event would be nice too!
-Go Blue and attend a college game at UK, go Wildcats!

Now a recap for those of you following along in this crazy adventure that is my life (and possibly yours too). The match is tomorrow and I am beyond excited. Wondering where I'll end up? I am!

12 cities, 12 possibilities and tomorrow we will find out where our new home will be...  I really have NO idea which it will be, but it has to be one of these:

Albany,NY
Boston, MA
Brooklyn, NY
Buffalo, NY
Houston, TX
Loma Linda, CA
Lexington, KY
Oakland, CA
Rochester, MN
Springfield, MA
St. Louis, MO
Stony Brook, NY

Best of luck to all my friends and colleagues. Medical school is about to come to an end!

Texas and Two Days!

Two days until the match and Texas is on my mind.

Houston to be exact.

Home of Texas Medical Center.
Home of Mission Control for NASA.

My future home? Only two days and I'll have an answer to that question.

And now, just for fun...

waiting and clues

Three days and I'm getting bored of my own countdown so here are three clues:

It would be an easy move....

4 days, but who is counting?!?

It is official that I have matched but the question remains, where?

What if I match in So Cal? Only 106 miles down the road from San Diego. Just ten minutes from where I am currently finishing my medical school rotations. House hunting would be easy. There would be no change in climate and we could spend our weekends in San Diego or LA.

Did you know?
-Inland Empire is known for its Oranges and was originally named Orange Empire.
-One could ski at Bear Mountain and surf at Long Beach in the same day while stopping at home for lunch.

Give me five!

Tomorrow I will find out IF I matched. Friday I will find out where. So I guess this is my final double countdown day.

For the SGU Match List look no further. Right now it just has those that have pre-matched or matched in Canada. It will be updated on Friday and thereafter. It always takes awhile but the link remains the same.

Five days and today I'm thinking of Minnesota.

Things you should know about my MN rank:

1. The program rocks.

2. Gypsy girl is from MN and she is awesome so I think her state must be awesome too.

3. The State abbreviation is the reverse of my home state. NM. MN. I think this is kind of cool.

4. There are over 10,000 natural lakes in the state, but NONE in Olmsted county where Rochester is located, go figure!

5. Home of this lovely couple: Fran and Marlo Cowan, married for 62 years when this was filmed. And what is better than that?

Under the Arch and I don't mean McDonald's!

Six days left and six programs left to think about.... Let's go to Saint Louis for the day.

Sunrise: 6:22a

Current Temp: 67 F 

We can go visit the Chess Hall of Fame, grab some coffee from Kayak's and then take a stroll through Forrest Park...

Saint Loius is also home of Purina Farms, so if I match here Sancho can become an agility dog in 2013!

Down to single digits... From here to there!

So the countdown continues....

9, 8, 7-

I  know missed a few posts. The days have slipped away due to the craziness that is my neurosurgery rotation.  I have had little time to do more than work/eat/sleep/repeat. Things learned on Neuro Sx this time so far include 1) Do NOT fall off a ladder 2) denial is a powerful thing but if you are loosing your vision or hearing (or both) the proper time to see a neurosurgeon is probably way past! 3) Being in the OR is fun if you get to operate on the brain, it is humbling, amazing and so cool.

Of the cities/programs I've been contemplating these three share the common denominator of being general pediatric programs. I would be happy at any of them. Sure I want to do Child Neurology but I also realize I am more of a pediatrician than a neurologist so spending three years instead of two to do a full pediatric residency would not be a bad thing.

And since they are all great peds programs, all academic, all awesome I have to do something to contrast them so here are a few random pics and facts.


"From here to there and there to here, funny things are everywhere." 
-Dr. Seuss

Springfield, MA

-Birthplace of and home to The Dr. Seuss National Monument and museum
-9% Registered Republicans
-Hoop City (Basketball was invented here)

Oakland, CA

-47th largest city in the US
-# of dog parks: 5
-260 sunny days per year

Albany,  NY

-The Capitol of NY since 1797 and longest continuously chartered city in the US
-Home of a very good college friend of mine and super awesome med school classmate of Dr Boyfriend, both of which have amazing families that we love (aka we have people here!)

-Santa Claus, and the first celebration of the feast of St. Nicholas in America, probably originated in Albany (imported from the Netherlands). -Reference here

Just six days to match, I'm excited, are you?

My love for Child Neurology was born here

Countdown to residency fate day: 10 days

The setting: Stony Brook, Long Island

The reason to rank: Dr. Krupp = Pediatric MS Center= My falling in love with Child Neurology



In the video is Dr. Krupp, my mentor and the reason I am applying for Child Neurology. I worked in her lab for three years before medical school and the study describes some of what I did and the importance of neurocognitive testing in this pediatric population. A friend recently told me that this sounded "so completely motivating and boring at the same time". Exactly, my friend, exactly!

Brooklyn also starts with B...

11 days until match and my countdown continues...

The second city that Dr. Boyfriend and I co-habitated in was none other than NYC. We lived in Manhattan for three years while Dr. Boyfriend went to Medical School at SUNY Downstate and I worked in Midtown. Thus if I were to match at his Alma Mater we would have no problems living in Brooklyn and readjusting to the big city life. I like NYC and while the last time I was there I was a bit of snob insisting on Manhattan living or bust, I think I could embrace the Brooklyn borough just fine. I have many friends still in the NYC area not to mention Dr. Boyfriend's entire family. And most importantly it is THE CITY so it is kind of hard to be too down-trodden about this possibility.

The list of Brooklyn awesomeness would be long so I'll give you the short version. Or skip my list and just watch the montage. Brooklyn to me in a nutshell is Park Slope, coffee options galore, Prospect Park, 24 hour everything, good food, diversity, familiar grounds, brunch options that never end, driving distance to that other B city I just so happen to love and so much more.



That's all I've got for today.

B is for....

Beantown.
Boston.
Best (city, ever)!
Boyfriend (the person I feel in love with in Boston almost 11 years ago)
Bruins.
Beanpot.
BU.
BC sucks (sorry Nutmeg)!
Boylston Street.
Brighton.
Braintree.
Bunker Hill.
Big Dig.
Belong.

12 days until the match, 12 possibilities and today I'm dreaming of Boston...

One week and one day

Until my ROL (rank order list) is due...

This part is torture. The waiting. I went on a second look today and now I have absolutely nothing else to do but hurry up and wait! (31 days until match, but who's counting???)

I pretty much know how I am ranking programs but still that doesn't mean that I don't spend the greater part of each day trying to decide if #3 should maybe be #6 and #5 should move to #3.... Does it matter more where I live or how the adult neuro year is structured? How important is the PD? Do I want to be at an ultra-academic setting or something more service orientated? Resident run or educationally focused?

These are the questions that I am pondering again and again. #1 and #2 are set and have been for some time. #11 and #12 have no hopes of moving up. But the rest of the programs are in limbo and seem to change positions in my mind by the hour.

So that is it. I'm stuck in limbo. Kind of like how several of my patients are "stuck" in the hospital waiting for placement. All I know is that our health care system is very inefficient. Because the cost of staying in the hospital when you have no active medical issues is enormous. But SNFs/Rehab Centers do not want to accept certain insurance plans or Medicaid and thus the patients are "stuck."

I'm worried that one of my patient's is going to get pneumonia and die before she is placed. And there is no reason for this.  Her nurse is mad at me because I dared write an order for her to be out of bed every day (she suffered a stroke and thus needs assistance to ambulate due to severe right sided hemiparesis). And PT/OT should be coming daily to do rehab with her but they do not have the time or resources to do so, thus she sits in bed on neutropenic precautions because she just finished chemo and I'm very worried that she won't survive this hospital admission. Which is now a week too long and looking to last much longer as per case management as she has been denied from 7 SNFs thus far.

And if that isn't enough, I have another patient that is a ward of state, also waiting for placement. She has been hospitalized for over 3 months and the last 2 months are in excess of her medical needs but she is stuck too.

Being stuck kind of reminds me of my Family Medicine Inpatient rotation at this same hospital and this post which I wrote over a year ago. I guess some things never change. Every year students wait for the match and every day patients sit in the hospital waiting for placement... We are all stuck in our own way but at least I know when my waiting will be up which is more than I can say for my patients. So for that I am grateful. I may complain but I realize how much of a privilege and honor it is to be able to wait for the match and to match and I do not take any of this lightly.... And I still have a week and a day to play with my ROL!

Residency Fate Day Countdown

Just 14 days until rank order lists are due and 37 days until Match Day! Very exciting. And kind of scary, but mostly exciting.... In a month and a week I'll find out where I matched and where we will be living for the next 3-5 years. And then before I know it intern year will be here and I'll be doing what I have only dreamed of up to this point.

Right now I'm doing at IM-TSS (Internal Med, Teaching Selective Service) in Cali and trying to remember all the adult medicine that I have not had to practice or use in months! I think my brain has atrophied during 4th year. It is truly sad how little I remember. I know that I used to know all about CHF, Renal Disease, Liver Failure, you know, the bread and butter adult medicine stuff... but I just don't have the immediate recall and end up having to look up EVERYTHING. Kind of embarrassing as I'm a big, grown-up MS IV. Yet it seems my medical knowledge is a file cabinet that has to be opened and indexed constantly, it is not a ready to read book like I want it to be. Not yet. But I guess that's why you have to do residency... to learn what you have learned and to practice and practice.

On the bright side I love, love, love talking to my patients, explaining diagnosis, getting code status confirmed, calling consults, writing order and just generally acting like a doctor. IM-TSS is a Hospitalist run service with no residents which means the MS IVs are the acting residents. It is like a sub-I without resident support. But I love that part of it. And the taking care of my patients part. I don't love it when my patient ends up needing to be intubated and upgraded to the ICU. But he is okay and I don't think I could have done anything differently or prevented his intubation... Medicine is awesome and I am humbled daily to be reminded that this is what I get to do with my life.

Residency Fate Day countdown is underway.... 37 more wake-ups to go!

Life Updates

I found a new great spot in the city to lounge/read and free WiFi. Color me happy!

ERAS applications are due Sept 15 so that is exciting. My list is currently at 86, not sure if it is growing or shrinking at this point. I'm applying to general Peds and Child Neuro and that's about all I have to say about that.

And speaking of child neuro, tomorrow will be the end of my first week on my child neuro rotation and  I NEED TO STUDY! So far this week I have seen, Becker's Muscular Dystrophy, Global Developmental Delay,  Failure to Thrive, Febrile Seizures,  Plagiocephaly, GBS Meningitis, Recurrent E.coli meningitis, and some other stuff that I'm forgetting at the moment. It has been a good week. I heart peds and child neuro and clinic and babies and cannot wait until this is what I get to do with my life.

Oh, and I'm going camping this weekend. Very fun!

And my bike ride is 10 days away. You should sponsor me, see last post.

And that's my life at the moment. Life is good.

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.)