Match Day

Yesterday was the BIG DAY our little family has been wating for for what seems forever now... Match Day!

For those of you not familiar with how medical school works I'll explain it a little bit.  All med students in their 4th year apply to residency positions for after graduation.  Everyone has to do a residency.  You pick a specialty and apply to as many schools as you want in that specialty.  Josh chose anesthesia.  Some specialties are more competitive and thereby more difficult to get into.  Anyway, after you apply, schools can invite you for an interview.  After all the interviews happen (it takes a few months) then you submit your rank list.  You rank the schools that you interviewed at and they rank you.  A fancy computer system thing uses the lists and matches you to a school for your residency.  Then on Match Day you find out where you matched and where you'll be spending the next X number of years.  (Different specialties have a different number of years required for residency- pediatrics is 3, anesthesia is 4, surgery is like 8 or something crazy)

{waiting to be called up on stage and find out where we matched}

So, Match Day is a pretty big deal for us in the 4th year of medical school!  It's the day that determines our life for the next few years.  There is also the possibility of not matching at all, which would be awful.  Anyways, we were fortunate enough to match and we matched at our #1 choice- University of Florida in Gainesville!  Woo-Hoo!  My honey is pretty much amazing. 

I do feel I need to say that we are NOT, nor will we ever be, Gator fans!  If you know about the Florida State and University of Florida rivalry then you understand my disclaimer.  My dad and sister went to FSU and my family are die hard FSU fans.  So we'll be sporting our Seminole gear around Gainesville, yesiree.  Hopefully we don't get spit on. ;)

 {Reese is nervously chewing on her fingers!}

 

So why did we choose UoF?  Well, to be close to family!  And FSU didn't have a anesthesia residency program.  My parents and youngest sister live about 1 hour from Gainesville, and my other 2 sisters live a couple hours away in different directions.  After 4 years of med school in Kentucky, Josh and I were ready to live near family!  Residency is hard and Josh will be really busy and have some long days and night.  I'm looking forward to having the support of so much family nearby.

{Josh up on stage opening his letter and reading where we matched)

{I took a video of Josh reading his letter.  The music you hear at the beginning is the song clip Josh chose for when he was walking up to the stage (Queen- Bohemian Rhapsody).  Each student got to submit a song clip.  It was fun to hear what people chose.}

After they read their letter, the students put a pin with their name on the map where they matched so everyone could see how the class spread out.  It was pretty neat.

We had a great time at the Match Day banquet!  It was a lot of fun and of course we were happy with our results. 

{Reese was pooped out by the end and sleeping in Josh's arms}