A visual homonym
So, the above is a visual homonym of what I went through. It's called the "scramble." I didn't match into a residency spot, and so they have the "scramble," which is so named for probably many reasons....One such reason is that you have roughly 6 hours to scramble and find one of the remaining residency spots that are still left open in the entire country. One other such reason for the meaning of the word is that you feel like your life, your brain, and your insides are all scrambled. So, let me delve into my week....
Monday morning: I had to open the website like 10 times, because I didn't believe that I hadn't matched into orthopaedic surgery. After the 10th time reading it, I think it started to set in. This was followed by phone calls from family, friends, fellow students, and everyone else in the world asking where I was going.......salt in the wound. I had to reiterate about a hundred times that I didn't match. Then I had to make a phone call to the school to let them know I didn't match. They said there would be a meeting that evening.
Monday evening: The meeting. I walk in to find 18 of my classmates in a similar position, so the shame and embarrassment was at least shared by more people than just me. They gave us a million papers to pour over, and let us know that the "scramble" started at 9am the next morning, and to go home and be ready with a game plan of what else we wanted to do with our lives (as ortho was already filled up across the country). My wife and I had very long talks, and no sleep.
Right after finding out that I have to play this sick game of "find a job before the rest of the country beats you to it," we had our financial aid exit interview to let us know that not only did I not have a job, but that I had hundreds of thousands of dollars to repay. Great timing on that meeting, thanks.
tuesday morning: I showed up, and they closed the dean's office for the day. Each student was given an employee to do their bidding. At 8:45 we received the list of what residency spots were still open. So I had an entire 15 minutes to plan the rest of my life. How did it work you ask? This sick and twisted game show was played by picking up the phone and calling programs you wanted to go to, faxing info, applying online.........and each minute that passed, hundreds of spots were being filled up. I seriously have never seen such mayhem. It was crazy. I dialed 42 numbers before it actually rang instead of a busy signal. The entire country was calling each number I was trying. To save you the long and agonizing story, I was offered a job at loma linda for just one year. I ended up passing on jobs from: seattle, north carolina, and michigan (sorry winns!). I'll have to tell the full story sometime, it was crazy.
So, anyhow......now I have a job for one year. This is a good thing, but I have no idea where to go from here. Maybe I reapply to ortho, maybe I switch into something a little easier, we're not quite sure. God has at least given me some manna for now, and we'll see what tomorrow brings when it shows up.
posted by Jon & Erin @ 1:55 PM
Comments: 2
