Match Day Recap

Match day brought much excitement and good news to our family! I wanted to share a little about the events of the day.

The match day ceremony was held at the McNamara Alumni Center on campus (the building pictured above). Most of the 4th year students were there. I was lucky enough to sit at a table with my best friends in med school. To demonstrate how nerdy we are, we nicknamed ourselves “The Syncytium.” According to wikipedia, a syncytium is a large cell-like structure filled with cytoplasm containing many nuclei. In many types of tissue, the syncytium works together, such as in cardiac and skeletal muscle. Enough with the biology lesson. During the first two years of medical school, we worked together. We would create study guides and share them with each other. We, like a syncytium, worked better together and were able to do better than if we were to work and study individually. Wow, I’m done with that analogy. During the 3rd and 4th years of medical school, we were rotating at different hospitals and didn’t see each other very often. However, we have Syncytium Reunions (aka lunch or dinner dates) often to keep in touch. I have been so lucky to have such a great group of friends. Five of the six girls are married and it’s great that our spouses get along as well. Introducing the Syncytium (and our better halves):

Emily & John

 

Meghann

Erin & Jon

 

Erin & Ryan

Christina & Ryan & their adorable daughter Rachel Emily (Emily is her middle name but I like to emphasize it since it is such an awesome name!)

Carmen & Mark & their beautiful Gabriella (they call her Gabby)

 

Approximately at 10:30am the program started. Fortunately it was short and sweet because we were all there for one purpose… to open our envelopes. They set up tables around the room that were organized alphabetically. At 11am, we were allowed to go to the tables and pick up our letters. Everyone at my table decided to open our letters together at the table. So I walked over to my table, picked up the envelope with Sharpe, Emily printed on the outside, and came back. As I walked up to John, I started crying. I hadn’t even opened my envelope yet and the tears came. I was overwhelmed with emotion that I was about to find out where we were going to be spending the next four years. John told me to stop crying because he wanted a picture of me holding the envelope. Fortunately he used shallow depth of field so you can’t see the tears in my eyes.

After I had composed myself, almost all of us (minus Erin Louks) posed for a picture with our envelopes:

 

Enough with pictures holding the envelopes… It was time to open them. At this point I was getting SO SO nervous:

John captured a video of my reaction when I opened the envelope. Forgive the vertical beginning of the video, it must be the photographer in him…

Emily's Match Day from John Sharpe on Vimeo.

In the video, you can hear my friend Christina shrieking in the background when she heard Carmen and I both matched at Mayo in Anesthesiology. Our match lists were completely different except for having Mayo as our first choice. It will be fun to train together. However, her first year she will spend in La Cross, WI at Gundersen Lutheran and I will spend it at HCMC in Minneapolis. And yes, I was emotional again after opening the envelope… 

After everyone opened their envelopes, there was much hugging and happiness going around.

          

After we opened our envelopes, we looked at the match list to see where all our classmates ended up.

 

John, I love you so much. Thank you for all of your support. I could not have done it without you. You are the best hubs ever! And I love you more.

After the match ceremony, most of my class walked across the street to Sally’s (a bar on campus) for appetizers and drinks. We didn’t take any pictures there but had a lot of fun chatting with everyone who matched!

Match day went well for us. Of course I am excited we matched into our first choice, but I would have been happy at any of my top 3 choices. I think Mayo will be a great place for us. John will be able to continue his wedding photography business in Minneapolis as well as set up a business in Rochester. It will be great to be closer to my mom as well. I am honored that Mayo picked me to be one of their residents. They have such a strong program.  I hope I can exceed their expectations.

Thank you to everyone for all your love and support these last few years! I have the best family and friends a girl could ask for.