Now that i've told the story of my audition rotations and all the work I put into the residency application, I want to write down the events, thoughts, impressions and adventures I had with the interview process and the actual Match day. Granted, im writing this almost a year after the events occurred.
I submitted the ERAS(electronic residency application service) application on September 1st, 2010, the very first day I was able to do so. I was in San Antonio on Eric Brimhalls computer. It was kind of a stressful but exciting time, knowing I wouldn't be able to edit anything on the application once I clicked the submit button, but also relieved knowing I wouldn't have spend any more time fretting over it. I really had no idea how competitive of a candidate I would be. I had pretty good board scores and a fairly good med school GPA and class rank, had done some research and alot of volunteer work. But I heard stories from other med students of how competitive PM&R was becoming and I wondered if there would be a spot for me. So to be on the safe side, I took kind of a shotgun approach and applied to 21 PM & R programs and 19 preliminary internal medicine programs, making 40 total. I picked a variety of programs from very competitive "dream" programs, to lesser known "backup" programs I thought i'd likely be able to get into. This cost roughly $460 in application fees. In retrospect, I really didn't need to apply to so many, but hindsight is 20/20, right??
A few days later I got my first PM&R interview offer email from Indiana University. It was a thrilling feeling to get that first interview. As the weeks passed by and more interview offers came in, it became almost an obsession to check the email on my phone every couple of minutes to see if another interview email had come. By the end of October, I had 13 PM&R interview offers and 8 prelim medicine offers. Not too bad considering for a while I doubted whether I would even get one interview.
Now the tricky part was scheduling these interviews. Since I took the shotgun approach, the distances between interviews ranged from Boston to LA, from Dallas to Minnesota, and seemingly everywhere in between. I had to balance spending enough time working on my rotation to get credit for 4th year requirements and also go to up to 3 interviews a week on some occasions in addition to travel. The interview season was packed into three short months, November to January. I ended up having to cancel and turn down several interviews because I just couldn't fit them all in.
I drove to as many interviews as I could and stayed with people I knew to cut down on expenses but I figured I still spent roughly $3500-4000 on gas, airline tickets, hotels and food on the interview trail. Surprisingly, after talking with some other med students who spent over 10,000 dollars on the interview process, I figured I had done pretty well. Here is a list of the places I interviewed for PM&R: Univ of Texas-Southwestern, Univ of Texas-San Antonio, Utah, Indiana, Univ of Cincinnati, Case Western, Pitt, Harvard and Mayo Clinic. For the prelim internal medicine (for the 1st year or Intern year)I interviewed at: Univ of Nevada-Reno, Christ hospital in Cincinnati, Good Samaritin hospital in Cincinnati, Firelands hospital in Sandusky, OH, Westchester hospital in Miami and Valley Hospital in Las Vegas. I had to turn down offers from Toledo, Kentucky, East Carolina and Missouri due to time constraints. I have to give a shout out and a big thank you to all the people who let me crash at their place the night before the interviews including: the Iversons in Boston, the Skidmores in San Antonio, the Naumanns in Cincinnati, Drew Dirschi in Rochester, my parents in Utah, and Nick Preston in Las Vegas. The furthest I drove for an interview was to Pittsburg, nearly 4 hrs away from Columbus. The furthest flight was from Boston to Reno. After the Harvard interview I had to be to Reno at 7am the following morning. I took a 6 hr flight from Boston to San Franscisco, switched planes and took another 45 min flight to Reno where Makenna met me. I took a three hr nap in the hotel, woke up, got ready and went to the interview. It was a good thing I was heading west across three time zones...there was no way I would have made it going the other way. I tried to bring Makenna with me to as many interviews as possible with her work schedule so she could see the city and give me her input on where she liked the most. She came with me to the Indiana and Reno interviews, and visited me while I was in San Antonio and Rochester, MN.
It was so much more fun doing residency interviews than med school interviews. I think I experienced, though on a much smaller scale, what athletes likely experience when they are being recruited by universities. I really felt like I was being recruited and was wanted by these programs. When applying to med school I felt I had to beg for a school to just let me in. For the residency interviews, several programs took us out to dinner the night before at very nice, up scale restaurants. Some programs paid for my hotel stay. During the interview day, they made sure my every need was met and usually took us out to a very nice lunch after the interviews were over. Some gave us souvineer bags, mugs, planners or other things to remember their program come match day. Some called me a few weeks later to ask if I had any questions about their program. Some sent letters thanking me for interviewing with them. It really was so fun to be wanted. :)
Thankfully, most of the actual interviewers were nice, relaxed and just wanted to find out who I was. Nobody grilled me on my medical knowledge or quizzed me on my procedure skills. It's funny how some of the easiest questions turn out to be the hardest when put on the spot. One of the most difficult questions proved to be when I was asked what I thought was my biggest accomplishment in life. After thinking for a few seconds, I told him the truth that marrying my wife Makenna in the Temple was what I was most proud of....not sure this impressed the non-LDS interviewer very much, but at least I was honest. :)
I ended up being late for only one dinner, but other than that I made sure I was early for everything else. Thankfully I never ran out of gas, had a flat tire, got stuck in an airport overnight or anything crazy like that. But I almost had a near disaster while in Dallas. I had set my interview suit on a chair in the Dallas airport while waiting for a taxi the night before the interview, and after I got to my hotel I realized I had left my suit on the chair! In a panic, I asked the hotel clerk if the hotel shuttle would take me back to the airport, but he kindly reminded me the shuttle didn't go to the airport(hence why I had to take a taxi in the first place). I didn't want to pay for another taxi, so I walked up to two people talking in the foyer and explained my situation and asked if they could take me back to the airport to get my suit. They were both of chinese decent and spoke broken english, but they understood what I said and the man agreed to take me. I should tell you that it was late at night and this man very easily could have said no. Talk about a good samaritin! The man's name ended up sounding like Sean and he was so nice. Luckily, my suit was still sitting on the same chair in the airport when we went back! I was so blessed and lucky! Chinese Sean refused what little cash I had left and after dropping me off at the hotel, I never saw him again. The interview day went very well, one of my favorites, and as you'll learn in a minute, was meant to be.
So after all the interviews, the time came to weigh all the pro's and con's, discuss all the options with Mak, and submit the rank order list by february 14th. I felt Makenna needed to have a lot of say in the process and really valued her opinion. Well, it was a long month after submitting the rank list waiting for match day. On monday, March 14th, I received an email confirming I had matched! This email did not say where, but the reason for the email was for those unfortunate enough not to match to have time to scramble into a program. So we waited a few more days, making predictions on where we would end up and finally Thursday March 17th arrived. My rotation let me have the afternoon off and Makenna took the afternoon off. I just happened to be rotating at Riverside where Makenna worked, so at noon we ran out of the hospital and drove speedily home together so we could open the email to see where we matched. I'll never forget the moment as we opened the email. We both thought for sure we were headed to Mayo Clinic after all the positive feedback I had received while rotating there. The email read that we had matched to: The University of Nevada for the 1st year and the University of Texas-Southwestern for residency! Makenna was in shock. She had not really thought Texas would be our final destination. She didn't speak for over 15 minutes! I had ranked the program high but had put a few programs ahead of it that, like i mentioned earlier, we were certain we would end up at. So after my suit experience in Dallas and having such a positive interview day, and the way everything worked out for me to make it to the reno interview, I am convinced our match results were meant to be. We are supposed to be in these areas for a reason. Now we just need to figure out what the reasons are. Makenna is now out of shock and is warming up to the idea of Texas. I can't wait. If anyone needs a place to stay in Reno this year or in Dallas in the next three after that, you are always welcome! Wish us luck in our new adventures of Internship and Residency!
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