Grenade

Con: figuring out my rank list is giving me a stress ulcer.
Pro: at least I'm finally losing my interview weight gain, thanks to the accompanying food aversion.

For the past couple of weeks, I've been doing a lot of that whole pros and cons thing.

Whoever decided on the match process was a glutton for disappointment. Seriously. It's not like all of us can go to our first choice program. Yet, here we are, trying to determine the rank order of programs where we feel like we could be happy. As though we all have an equal chance at #1.

Trying to figure out where I want to be in just a mere five or six months is a complicated process of checks and balances. One place has a great location, another has better psychotherapy training. One program might be the highest ranked, but is full of married people. One program has the best of both worlds, but I'm sadly still minus one book deal. This program has a world-class addictions unit, but also has one OCD-afflicted residency director. And so on and so forth.

It all boils down to figuring out what I value more. Training? Location? Celebrities? Proximity to decent sushi?

So I came up with a random point system. Ten points for close proximity to the boyfriend. Two points for good psychotherapy. Minus two points for traffic. Plus two points for sushi. Minus two points for corn fields. Not ever having to drive for the rest of my adult life equals three points. Not ever having to learn how to drive for the rest of my adult life equals two points. Et cetera and repeat ad nauseum.

Then I started making the list. But by making that list, I am clearly delineating that there is one program that is better than all the others, one program that will make me so ecstatically happy come Match Day. And conversely, there is one program that I'm hoping I won't end up at, but going there would be better than scrambling into South Dakota.*

And at the end of the day, when I look at my list, I want to vomit. Because there are some programs that I would give whole limbs to train at. Legs, arms, kneecaps, eyeballs, whatever you want! But I know there's a good chance that I won't end up matching at those places, no matter how many arms and legs I might promise them. There's a chance I might end up scrambling into a program I've never even been to, never even heard of. There's a chance that maybe this will all blow up in my face. A pretty good chance that this will all blow up in my face.

All this uncertainty sucks. And it's causing my stress ulcer to go into acidic production overdrive. Someone tell me why we can't apply for residency the way most people apply for jobs? With job offers and all that wonderful sense of security and certainty? Because with the Match, unless you're one of the lucky few that does match at their top-ranked program, it's just another lesson in disappointment.

And well, if all the years in medical school have taught me nothing else, it's taught me this: I am not one of the lucky ones. I do not live a semi-charmed kind of life. And if things can go wrong, they will.

I am absolutely dreading Match Day. So if we could just agree to avoid the topic all-together, I'd be much obliged.

---
*No offense to those South Dakotans. There's actually only one psych program in South Dakota, and I hear it's actually quite good, and competitive. For a South Dakotan. But still, very competitive!