The Residency Application Process

Applying to residency is a process that most are not familiar with. When people apply for med school, law school, dental school, etc, they interview at multiple programs then receive multiple acceptances. Then they have to decide where they want to go. Residency is a little different.

It is similar in that I applied to multiple programs across the country. This happened back in September. Then I waited and waited for interviews. I received interview invitations from eight programs: Baylor, University of Colorado, Oregon Health Sciences University, University of Arizona, University of Minnesota, Mayo Clinic, University of Utah, and University of Michigan. Much of my time in November and December (and a little bit of January) was spent interviewing at these programs. Anesthesiology is unique in that I also needed to apply to intern programs (my first year of residency). So I interviewed at one in Portland, OR, one in La Crosse Wisconsin, and two here in Minneapolis.

Residency interviews were a lot more fun than medical school interviews. Most programs paid for a nice hotel and treated us to a fancy dinner the night prior to the interview. Also when I applied for medical school it seemed like the programs wanted to know why they should accept me (except for my U of Minnesota interview where he told me why I should choose Minnesota). However, in my residency interviews, approximately half of the time was spent answering my questions about the programs. They were trying to convince me to choose their program. I definitely liked this aspect. The interviews didn’t feel so one-sided. We were both testing the waters. I was seeing if I could see myself training at their program and living in their city. And they were checking out if my personality fit with their program and residents. I definitely enjoyed the interview process.

Now that my interviews were complete, I had to develop my “rank list.” This is where the process differs from most graduate schools. Instead of receiving acceptances from these different programs, I had to rank them on a list mostly without any feedback from them. Number one on my rank list was supposed to be my favorite and number eight was supposed to be my least favorite. This was much more difficult than I anticipated. I was lucky in that I enjoyed all the programs I interviewed with but by the end of the process, the details started to blur together. Something else I had to consider was once I listed a program on my rank list, if I ranked there, I was in a contract to go to that program. Some of my classmates didn’t rank some of the programs they interviewed at because they wouldn’t want to train there. Again, I was lucky and didn’t have to worry about this. Then the programs go through a similar process. They develop a rank list of all the applicants they interviewed. The rank lists get submitted to the NRMP (the National Resident Matching Program) near the end of February and then we are matched via a fancy algorithm. You can read about the details here if you so desire.

So now this week is the week I’ve been waiting for. Today we were supposed to find out IF we matched but not where. So at 11am I received an email from the NRMP that stated:

“Congratulations. You have matched.”

A wave of relief passed through my body. I was not going to have to experience “The scramble” or “Rematch.” This occurs for students who do not match with a program. Tomorrow they will gather and will start making phone calls to all the programs in the country who have open spots. They are literally scrambling for a spot.  I am very happy that I will not know how this process works.

So now it all comes down to Thursday. At 11am. (12 eastern). I will find out where we will spend our next four years. But I am content right now to know that I will become an anesthesiologist.

So where do you think we will end up?

Oh, and to clarify about my previous post, all of my requirements to graduate are finished but I am not officially an MD until I graduate May 7.