The Harrowing Pursuit of Residency

Well...here I am again, writing my annual post. I know I promised to keep those who actually read this blog up to date on my progress through medical school, but unfortunately medical school is an abusive mistress and decided that I should not be allowed to do so.

I am currently sitting in the one and only Starbucks in Prineville, OR, studying. Last year, about this same time, I took an extremely distressing exam known as Step 1 of the USMLE. Naively, I assumed that I would be exam free for some time, but alas, I am now studying for Step 2 of the USMLE, to be taken on Monday. Now, it should be mentioned, I have not invested nearly as much time into this exam as I did for the previous, but I do feel more at peace about it. After I complete this exam, I shall drive back to Portland, and begin my fourth year of medical school with a bang...esophageal and foregut surgery.

For those of you that do not know, I have decided to put my future career path in the hands of general surgery. Many of you will think "Wait, I thought he was doing orthopedics?" While that was true for some time, I have fallen in love with general surgery. General surgery is a five year indentured servitude post-medical school, during which I am theoretically trained to be an excellent surgeon. Some residency programs have additional years of research, so I could potentially have 6-7 years of indentured servitude before I am allowed to practice medicine without supervision from an attending. I also am planning on doing a pediatric surgery fellowship (another two years of clinical training post residency), so all in all, I still have another ten years to go before I actually begin my career as a practicing physician. Sometimes I wonder why I am doing this to myself, then I realize that I get to sit in a Starbucks and study during my only time off this summer and realize it is all entirely worth it....

I begin to apply for residency this summer/fall. The application process is much like that of medical school, I send out many applications to many different programs which costs many dollars and I hope that many schools like me and send me many interview invites, at which point I spend many more dollars flying to these many interviews, trying to impress the many people that will interview me, after which those many programs rank their many interviewees in the order they like and I rank my many programs in the order of which I would like to attend and a computer does many calculations and then after many months and many days in the month of March I find out what ONE program I get to go to. You see, this is all a harrowing process that inflicts severe stress on the individual. I would not be surprised if I develop a peptic ulcer that perforates in this process and I will have no way to monitor my FAUD (free air under diaphragm) status. Death is imminent.

Well, I must get back to studying....