It's been about a year now since Aric completed his 4th year of Medical school so I thought I would finally get around to the story of "Match Day"
Aric was trying to match in Orthopedic surgery and had 5 interviews scheduled (not nearly as many as we would have liked). The interviews were at UVA, Greenville SC, Charleston SC, Albany NY, and Denver CO. We wanted to stay at UVA for the sake of the kids, yet we knew that Aric wasn't going to be high on UVa's list. Aric hadn't been set on Orthopedics from the beginning and didn't have any research in the field.
One thing that was important to both of us was to end up somewhere that we could buy a house and finally get out of our cramped 3 bedroom apartment. I would often find Aric and the kids huddled around the computer looking at puppies online (pets are not allowed in family housing). One afternoon I was walking around the track at a nearby elementary school while Killian had soccer practice. The track had little off shoot trails every 20 yards or so that went into the surrounding neighborhood. I randomly took one of these paths and walked into a cute little culdesac, it was perfect. Beautiful houses with manicured lawns, front porches, bicycles and trikes
littering the driveways, the exact type of neighborhood I wanted my family to live. I actually got a little emotional and said a little prayer in my head, I asked God to be with us in the match, be with the kids that the move (which I assumed was inevitable) wouldn't be to hard on them, and that wherever we ended up that we would be able to find a house.
Match week starts on a Monday, that's when all the 4th year students receive an email letting them know if they matched at one of their prospective programs. I hadn't put a lot of thought into not matching, I thought worst case scenario would be matching at our #5 ranked program which was MUSC in Charleston (a lovely place to visit but the housing market is pricey). When Aric got the email that he hadn't matched we went into full blown panic mode. What now? The idea of having to take a year off and re-enter the match was not an option for us. We immediately went to meet with the Dean who was very helpful in easing our minds and it was at that meeting that we decided Anesthesia was the best option. That day Aric was offered a one year intern spot at UVa, and a couple months after that he was offered a spot with the UVa Anesthesia dept. No re-interviewing, no re-matching, no taking a year off!
So fast forward one year and here we are. Aric is almost done with his intern year, we love Virginia and are so happy we get to call it home for four more years. The best part is we were finally able to become homeowners again. In October we bought a house that just happens to be in the very same culdesac that prompted a little prayer months before.
How we began this journey,
White Coat Ceremony 2008
