Well, and some of you already know, anyway. It's all resolved now. Looking back, the funniest part was the immediate 48 hours post Match day. So here's how it goes, this thing called THE MATCH. You decide for some unknown reason that you wish for another year (internship) or three (residency, usually done after the internship) of veterinary torture. This is not a required desire for all veterinarians, unlike in medical school. We could simply go out and start hawking our skills to practices who might wish to hire our scared selves. (I mean, we've had four years of school, but that in no way compensates for years of experience. I know that when people call me "Doctor" in a few months I'm going to be looking around in confusion. Yet, the only way to get experience...) So why do it? The lack of remuneration and all the glamour just call to you (just in case you weren't paying attention, this is called sarcasm, folks) . Or, I suppose you might really want to get some more advanced training, or specialize in something like surgery, or cardiology, or maybe you just like taking really hard tests and having extra letters after your name.
So, the Match. You send in stuff to a central agency that orchestrates most of these positions. This includes: a) your grades b) a little form thingy saying what position you are applying for c) a letter of intent which hopefully doesn't make you sound like an ass, and yet lovingly highlights your good qualities in a unique and eye-catching way (for those of you on these committees, my hat's off to you wading through that mulch) and d) three letters of reference, which again, hopefully highlight your good qualities without any veiled allusions to BAD THINGS, such as: "A very smart hardworking student, but can be difficult to work with," (This means, what a B*TCH!) or, "Shows great potential; needs to be pushed harder." (Meaning, she's lazy and picks her nose at rounds.) Again, hats off to the clinicians who write these umpteen letters for people they may have only known for a week. The ridiculous thing is the trepidation one feels for asking for these letters. When advised, you are told, only ask if the person feels that they can give you a good letter, implying that leaving out the word "good" somehow invalidates the contract, so they could just write you any old letter. Dear Blah Animal Hospital, they will say. I am free to say how I feel because that fool Jenny Joe Schmoe FORGOT to ask for a good letter. So, thinking about Jenny Joe Schmoe as an intern? HA! HA HA--Don't make me laugh too hard. Whatever you do, stay away from her. She actually didn't know the dose of Clavamox for a urinary tract infection! Can YOU IMAGINE? Love, Dr. Soandso. I doubt that doctors really write such things, but such advice over petty language makes you worry a little.
Anyway, once you send all that in, and pay the pretty scary people (it's like the Mafia, maybe?) you then get to rank all the programs to which you applied. And then the people offering the positions rank the candidates they are interested in. And then the magic begins...It reads a little like a complicated word problem: "If Johnny has 13 apples and he leaves his house at10:45 am walking west at 3 miles an hour, and he eats the apples at a rate of 1 apple per hour, how likely is he to die from indigestion before reaching his destination?"
An actual quote from the website:
By way of example, Metropolis University (MU) has four residencies available in surgery. MU received 22 applications, out of which it chose to rank 12 candidates. In effect, MU has offered jobs to candidates 1, 2, 3 and 4 on its list. Candidate 1 has Metropolis U ranked fourth, #2 has it ranked first, #3 ranked it second and #4 ranked it first. Metropolis would be matched with candidates #2 and #4 and nothing else would happen until candidates #1 and #3 are matched elsewhere, or the programs ranked higher than Metropolis on the candidate lists were filled.
Anyway, I only applied to two places, which between them had 6 positions. Knowing this, I was prepared, as much as I could be, not to match. The thing that really got me, though, was how I would say this to some well meaning person and they would reply, "Oh, I'm sure you'll match, you're ______." And the blank would be some nice compliment, etc. Now lest I seem ungrateful, let me explain my objection to this comment, and show you instead, that I am actually analytical and picky and--well, maybe ungrateful. This whole comment was of course designed to be innocuous and soothing, and was probably what they themselves also needed to hear. But to me it implied that if you match it was because you were _____, therefore, if you didn't match, that must somehow imply inferiority and not _____. I thought, hell, I may not match, it's statistics. Because I'd much rather blame the vagaries of the word problem than my worthiness as a candidate. I wasn't actually all that worried about my worthiness as a candidate truth be told. So you might see how the compliment failed to meet the mark, and that I can't take a compliment to save my life.
Now, there wouldn't be much of a story here if I had matched. So, no, I didn't match. And I found this out by logging on to the website and being politely told by the webpage, and it was all impersonal and sort of fine. My main problem was: WHAT DO I DO NOW? Do I think about getting a job next year (EECK!) or applying for open internship positions in potentially up-until- now unconsidered states (URK?) or do I crawl in bed and sing a little happy song until it all goes away? I'm not just making this decision for myself, y'all. I have a man and two dogs and two ferrets and a large tortoise (in a pear tree?) to consider, and the man especially has what you might call an ANTI-Desire to stay anywhere on the east coast or the midwest. He's an Oregon boy, born and bred, and it calls to him...Anyway, there is this long list of internship openings available because not all the places match either (it felt like a small justice, at the time).
By 11 am that morning I had gotten 6 phone calls and 8 emails from random people at random hospitals all over the country asking if I wanted to come be their Bitc..ahem..intern. At first it was a heady rush of power: ME, they want ME, HA HA HA...wait a minute, I have how long to decide if I want to come to your hospital in Podunk IL? The answer: "we'd really like to have the position filled by Wednesday." This was Monday, y'all. From no known future to consider moving to Florida? Sacramento? Virginia? But DECIDE RIGHT NOW. Hmm, now I've never been a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants type gal. But forgive me if I'm wrong, even without the boy and the dogs and the ferrets and the tortoise (in pear tree?) I'm not sure impulse shopping for an internship is such a good idea. People say, "it's only a year," in this casual offhand way as if we just drop a year here and there, no big deal, you can handle anything for a year. ANYTHING? I can think of a lot of things I wouldn't want to handle for a year. Isn't that what reality TV is based on? And the emails and the phone calls just.kept.coming. You see, they publish the list of all those folks who don't match, and then this 48 hour period is called The Scramble. Think of it as a giant country wide game of musical chairs, played with chairs you can't see and players you don't know; they may turn out to have beautiful chaise lounges to offer you, or you may end up being squashed into an old plastic cafeteria chair by Bertha, the 300lb human resources manager who forgot to mention that they 're suffering from a technician shortage and you'll be responsible for all evening treatments, at no extra cost to you (Disclaimer: there was no Bertha, and I'm sure people with that name are lovely at any size). You are expected to send them those original references (try tracking down three faculty members in 12 hours, I challenge you), maybe the application, and then wait.
So I called the only place left in the Northwest that had an open position. I know a few people who have worked there or work there still, and I got the skinny from them, and I said, well, it's about the only thing I can think of that would work right for everyone concerned and would not cause me to tear out my hair or be abandoned by my boyfriend or lead to madness. And right when I thought I might have to re-track down those three faculty members and apply for some position in San Diego (which I hear is a nice town, but it ain't Oregon), I was in. Phew! And you think it was a long story to read! It was a crazy 48 hour period, but I have learned. 1) Smile pretty and try to take the compliments, they don't mean anything by it. 2) There's no point in being frantic over the future, because it just comes right up behind you and kicks your butt anyway. 3) Don't make plans. If you are like me, you will continue to make plans anyway, but you can at least remember you once thought it would be a good rule. 4) Vet school is stupid sometimes and tries to convince you your life is ending. It is wrong. 5) I'm going to be in my favorite city next year and that makes everything seem good good good. Yippee!
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