Happy Match Day!

Most of you that read this blog know exactly what incredibly exciting "holiday" I'm talking about. It's Match Day 2012, the day for fourth year medical students where the culmination of [almost] four long hard years of work presents itself in one little envelope that contains the direction of your life (and your family's!) for the next 3-7 years. For those of you who don't know, I like this article for a better understanding of Match Day (although it no longer takes place on the third Thursday of March).

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To the partners and families of 4th year medical students, especially the wives whose blogs I've come to love for their offering little glimpses into our future, I hope this day was everything you hoped it would be and that your match fills you with joy and excitement. As far away as this day feels like it is for us, I realize that I'll be taking my second to last "first day of school photo" (you can see the photos from years 1 and 2 here) very shortly. MS3 and clinical rotations start for Christian in June (or July?) and my own clinicals begin in May. Time flies when you're having fun, I guess. 

I got to watch the live stream of Match Day and was so happy to see all the smiles. Because Chris had a class and couldn't listen to the live stream, while I watched I fed all the match results to him and some classmates over Google chat. Because this is only the second matching class of the this particular campus (the first class ever graduated last year), it is exciting to see the high caliber matches being made by students from a program that is still in its beginnings. As excited as I was to watch this year's match, I/we don't really know the fourth year students as well as we do the first and third year students. They were already in their clinical rotations (rarely on campus) by the time Christian started year 1. This means that next year will surely be an incredibly emotional and exciting experience for us as we watch the current third year students match, many of whom have become friends. Not to mention we'll be only one year away. ;)

So Happy Match Day, everyone. And be thankful for the doctors in your life. Their journey is a crazy roller coaster ride and my appreciation for them grows every day of our crazy roller coaster ride.