All right, fine. It's time.
I'm not really ready, but I will discuss this simply because it is a notably taboo topic among those of us who suffered this experience, but talk therapy helps, right? (No need for comments of praise or encouragement. This is just an exercise with a mind toward healing.)
Med school has been a marathon--a four year journey to Mordor and back that covered not only the breadth of Middle Earth, but also the great United States in a rough pentacle pattern (fact: it would have been so much easier to just fly on the giant eagles!)
The peak of med school is the fourth year. The year when you've figured out what you want to do, and you work on where you want to do it. I knew what I wanted to do. I even had figured out where I wanted to do it. And I had my game face on. I went everywhere. Worked with everyone. I lived and breathed OB/GYN. 1000% and all that.
Over the course of the 2 clinical years' of training, I received a lot of encouragement about my residency choice. And here's the thing about good feedback: After you hear enough of it, you start to believe it: You've got this. I have no reservations about your match. You're going to go great places. You'll be such a great OB/GYN...
By March 11th there were over 40,000 registrants to the National Residency Match Program waiting anxiously for the NRMP to tell us where we were going. There were just over 25,000 first-year slots available (1,259 of them for OB/GYN)--the largest MD Match ever. And despite the flutter of anxiety from my Frontal voice (the one that wigs out about stuff all the time), my Occipital Voice (you know, the small one in the back of your brain that actually knows what's going on) soothed me: What are you worried about? You're ready. Everyone thinks you're ready. You have a great application. Very strong letters. You interviewed fine. You even went back for a Second Look at one place. For christ's sake stop worrying. So, after 40 applications, endless hours of travel and 6 months of homelessness in the pursuit of academics, for the first time since embarking on the pre-med/med school journey in 2004, I was completely sure of my path. I stopped worrying.
And on March 12th at 9am, I read the following words from the NRMP: "We're sorry. You have not matched to any program."
Not matched? NOT matched?? THEY'RE SORRY???
I had to read it again just to ensure my literacy.
Fact: Yes, I could read.
Fact: No, I did not match.
Fact: I. Am. So. Screwed.
Panic set in. In a flash I summed the time, the money, the personal, emotional and mental sacrifices, and then of course all of the travel...Which is all fine and good if one achieves appropriate stated goals, but this...this was all for nothing. Almost 9 years of work, and I have...nothing. I felt sick. Oh my god, it feels like someone died.
The Facebook feed lit up with colleagues reporting their upcoming residency matches while I sat frozen, wondering, What in Christ's name do I even do??
Here's the short of it: by default I entered the MD Supplemental Offer and Acceptance Program, which roughly translated to 5 days of sheer torture. There were just over 1,000 open programs, 3 of them for OB/GYN. Directors could call at any time to spontaneously interview me. But I didn't know when they would do that, so every interview for every subspecialty was done cold. I was paranoid that I was missing calls all day, even though I was sitting right in front of the phone. The SOAP rules forbade me to initiate contact with any of these open programs, or call in a favor from important people I'd met throughout the year (then what was the point of all that? Well I don't know). As the week progressed, programs systematically filled. Every day I still went unmatched. All OB/GYN programs filled by Wednesday morning. Beta blockers helped the tachycardia. Not so much the crying spells.
At the conclusion of the week, I by-default was entered into the DO Scramble. There were 2 open OB/GYN positions in NY available, which filled the next day. I still had no offers.
Now the magnitude of what had just happened actually hit me: I was one of only 16 people in my 200-man class who failed to match. 16! At this moment in time, the closest thing I was ever going to get to a career in OB/GYN was going to be watching "The Mindy Project." I would not deliver babies, reconstruct a pelvis, cure pre-/eclampsia or stage ovarian cancer. I would not be in charge of an OR. There would be no fellowship in GYN/ONC. Amidst a mixture of grief and shock, the overwhelming emotion was shame.
So what was left? Some other field. Family medicine. Internal medicine. Somewhere...And, sure, I could do it. I didn't doubt that. But god if I didn't really want to do it.
The riveting conclusion of this story is that I find myself back in CA--incidentally, the one geographic location I never expected to be in spring of 2013.
Update: predominant emotion is apathy, peppered with sudden grief and occasional overtures of shame. What happened in March definitely clouds the achievement of commencement week. It's true that I am thankful that I have any job at all come July 1st and I remain undecided as to whether I will pursue a new round of applications for a first-year OB/GYN position in 2014. The idea is exhausting and gives me more nausea.
So there you have it. That's what happened. And now let's never speak of this again.
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