You might be wondering what Nik's plans are as he finishes up school. Well, we're locked into a really interesting transition that grows more interesting by the day. Let me break it down for you: getting a residency is not easy. It's not like Med School. You don't just apply to schools, interview, wait for an acceptance, and choose which one you liked best out of the ones that accepted you. It's completely different, and the differences make it complicated and stressful.
Okay. To the best of my limited knowledge, this is how it works. You complete an application in ERAS (electronic residency application system/service?). These are due on 9/1 of the year prior to your residency. When you complete your application, you have to include a resume, a personal statement (that takes forever to write, hone, rewrite, edit, etc), and letters of recommendation (that you have to beg, steal, and borrow to get from reputable doctors in the hospital--and it seems everyone wants letters from the same people). Once you have all of that loaded into the system, you have to choose your residency programs. Well, I guess first you have to pick your specialty...specifically what kind of doctor you want to be...then you choose the programs that offer a residency in that specialty. After you choose the programs you want to possibly interview with (all over the country), you wait. And wait. And wait. Some specialties are faster at offering interviews than others. Interview season is pretty much from November to January. Once you have completed your interviews, you make what's called a "rank list". This is where you write down the programs you want to possibly go to out of the ones you had interviews with. This is tough. If you rank too few, you might not end up with a spot. If you rank ones you were only on the fence about, you might end up there for 3+ years. Ranking happens sometime during February. Then you wait some more while some weird computer algorithm matches you with a school on your list. I'm not completely sure about the process, but at the very least, your rank list and the school's rank list for its interviewees are involved. You find out on March 12th, 2012 next year whether you matched at all. AND THEN YOU HAVE TO WAIT A WHOLE WEEK TO FIND OUT WHERE YOU'RE GOING! How cruel is that? Once you find out where you're going you have from mid-March to June or July (depending on the program) to get your act together and get moved. Some people stay in the same place. Some people move. Again, the process is very strange. It's not like anything I've ever seen. There's no networking and greasing palms and "knowing someone".
NOTE: IF YOU ARE A MEDICAL STUDENT READING THIS AND CAN OFFER A BETTER EXPLANATION AS TO HOW THIS PROCESS WORKS, I WELCOME YOUR FEEDBACK.
So obviously it's a tough position to be in as the wife of someone going through this process. I have no control. If you know me at all, you know that makes me crazy. I have created a MASSIVE spreadsheet that chronicles all the programs' best/worst features including items about what it would be like for us to live in the city in which the program is located. I won't even go into what it was like to try to narrow down the list of possibilities to 25 places.
Nik seems to be handling it pretty well. He is getting interview offers almost daily and is now weeding through the 25 to decide which programs he really wants to interview with. He wants to do about 12 interviews. He'll decide on how many programs to put on his rank list after he finishes all the interviews. In the beginning programs in Maine, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Florida, Kentucky, Connecticut, and Texas were on the list.
And now to narrow the list...
