The entire process begins in the Fall semester of your fourth year of medical school. To be fair, the entire process starts with realizing about a year prior to graduating with your degree in Aerospace Engineering that you don't actually like engineering, but you go ahead and work as an aerospace engineer, just to be sure before saying, nope, I don't like this. Then you apply medical school. Four times. Then you get accepted and work your ass off for three years which brings us right back to fall semester of the fourth year.
At this point, you spend an excessive amount of money applying to programs in the speciality your choice. Then you wait on pins and needles for interview offers to start rolling in. As this happens, you remain glued to your phone, responding as quickly as possible to said interview offers, because if you don't respond to an offer basically the moment it arrives in your inbox, you will lose that spot to someone who responded quicker. That's right, the programs offer interview slots to more students than they can actually accommodate, because this process isn't already painful enough. As the interviews roll are accepted, you also must book travel to all accepted interviews. But don't do it too soon! You might get a new offer to a program of higher interest at the last minute, in which case, you cancel the previous offer (and some other student receives a last minute offer to your now-open slot, leaving you both precisely two days to book cross country plane tickets. It's great for the bank account.
The interviews themselves are affairs that takes place over two days. The morning prior any given interview, you head to the airport at an ungodly hour. You spend the travelling and praying for no delays or missed flights, hoping to arrive with 30 minutes to spare so you can brush those teeth prior to your evening activities. The evening activity is always dinner with the program's current residents. This portion is paid for, but the transportation to and from isn't. The evening is spent schmoozing and attempting to get a feel for the type of person accepted into said program, as well as how happy {or miserable} they are. Hopefully you make a good impression, because these residents give feedback as to who they think would make a good fit. The following day is the interview itself. You don your finest attire and spend four-five hours being shown around the facilities, interviewed by several different attending physicians, the chief resident, and the program director. Sometimes simultaneously, sometimes seperately. It's all very nerve-wracking. The day concludes with a lunch of hospital cafeteria food in the company of your competition. Then you race back to the airport to catch the flight home, again praying for no delays or missed connections. You land back home around 11pm, climb in bed by midnight, spend the following day doing laundry and likely start the whole process again the next. This goes on for approximately three months.
Finally, after the ultimate interview has ended, you sit down with your spouse to develop a rank order list of the places you interviewed. You discuss which is better: staying close to home, free daycare, lots of help from family, good pay, cheap housing, and familiarity OR , taking a chance on a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, moving the the east coast, and living by the sea in Maine, as you've always dreamt. While you discuss the programs, the programs also discuss you. Each program across the country complies a rank list of those students they interviewed.
Once everyone has submitted their lists, a computer algorithm works its magic and {almost} everyone is matched up with a program. Theoretically, you should be able to submit your rank lists the evening that they are due and be provided with a match the following day. This is not the case. Instead, you must wait 2.5 more weeks until the Monday of "Match Week." That Monday, at 12pm Eastern time, you can log into your official match account where you'll find a message that either says, "Congratulations, you've matched!" or the ever-dreaded "You did not match." Let's not even discuss that second message. Of course, if you do match, they do not tell you where. You are again made to wait- this time until Friday, which is officially "Match Day." Again, at 12pm Eastern time, all medical schools across the country begin their Match Day Ceremonies during which each student is called to the front of the room and handed an envelope containing precisely the rest of their lives. One by one, the students open their envelopes in front of their families and cohort and announce where they have matched.
And that's it! You finally know! Four years, $200,000 of student debt, and one baby later, you've made it! Hallelujah! Holy Shit! Where's the Tylenol?
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