Michael's Match Day

Kathy and I got up real early and drove for two hours to Amarillo to celebrate Michael’s biggest day in his young career in medicine. “Dad, come at about 9:30,” Michael called, sounded pretty serious by his standards. He is usually pretty laid back and doesn’t usually take things that seriously. I knew he was a bit uptight over this whole matching thing. He’s been working too hard over the three plus years not to take it seriously. His future career as a physician would be determined by a computer program designed by NRMP, matching him with the residency programs with which he had interviewed over the last few months. He interviewed with 17 places total and ranked 12 of them.

We knew by Monday that he had matched with an EM residency, but had no idea which one among the twelve. The truth would be revealed at 12 Eastern Time when all the fourth year medical students nationwide would open up their envelopes and find out where they would spend their next three to five years, receiving their specialty training, ranging from family medicine to orthopedic surgery.

We arrived at Michael’s house at about 10 and Michael was about ready to go. He looked pretty calm but I knew he was getting quite anxious inside. He has been working very hard toward his goal of becoming an EM doctor and in an hour or so he would harvest the first fruit of his labor. Kathy and I were feeling nervous for him, because we didn’t want him to be disappointed by not getting his top choices. People were gathering in a classroom when we arrived and, after a brief photo session we moved to a larger room and a big brown envelope was handed to each student. At 11 o’clock everyone opened up their envelopes in unison. I looked away while Michael was opening up his, for I didn’t want to see his expression of disappointment in case the result was less than desirable.

“Wow, double wows,” I said with disbelief when I looked at the paper that spelled out the place where he would receive his medical training for the next three years. I had checked almost all the programs Michael interviewed over the months, but I failed to look at the one with which he matched. It was indeed a big surprise.