The Magic Madison Match

Last Friday I matched for residency at the University of Wisconsin Family Medicine program! We are delighted to be going back to such a wonderful and supportive community in our old, familiar Madison.

 During the residency interview process I poured over every pro and con of the programs I visited: community vs. academic program, number of residents, number of OB deliveries ( I prefer less), emphasis on care for the underserved (I prefer more), frequency of interpreted visits, pediatric volume, location, reputation, presence of residents in other specialties, open vs. closed ICU, etc, etc.  In the end, what seemed most important was being in an affordable city full of friends, with good schools for Ethan, rugby for Jeremy and a program that really takes care of its residents.  Madison wins on all counts.

Match Day was wildly emotional with anxiety, excitement, relief, joy, disappointment all in one busy afternoon.  We left the kids with a babysitter.  (Great call! Not dragging my kids to everything I want to do is my new mature mommy move.)  After some silly med student video skits, mingling, and laughing nervously, the Match Day ceremony proper began.  At Dartmouth this involves being called one by one to the front of a very large crowd, receiving an envelope containing your secret match information, and (if you are brave/extroverted/swayed by peer pressure) you open it up and announce your match via microphone to everyone and their mother.  I was almost the last one called and got so distracted by all the excitement around everyone else's match that I almost forgot to be nervous about the contents of my own mysterious envelope!

 I admit to feeling a little out of place and lonesome on Match Day, as I added a year to medical school and thus I don't know this class of graduating students very well.  I felt a little like I was crashing their party.  Also, there were tons of super elite Ivy League matches, and I felt (in the true Wisconsin sense of the word) different for choosing Family Medicine training at a public, midwestern school. A bunch of folks didn't know if they should be happy or sad for me!  Fortunately I have a small but solid crew of excellent colleagues going into Family Medicine and I had my family and some good friends there to back me up.  Jeremy was all smiles after we matched.

Now it's on to house hunting, packing, cleaning, purging, and trying to squeeze in as much New England goodness as we can before the move in June.