Match Day

This past Thursday, March 18th, my good friend, Mitch Dizon, invited me to a very important day for he and all of his fellow 4th year med students and their families: Match Day. Very basically, it's the day that every med student waits for: a ticket to freedom from what they've endured for the past 8 years, specifically the past 4 years of med school or "hell," as Mitch described it. After having interviewed at different places around the country, each student ranks where they'd like to go for residency. Then those places rank their top picks from students all around the country...thus the match.

Mitch described it as a monster of a process and couldn't wait for it to be over. He started traveling for interviews at Christmastime and then went BACK to the places he was most interested in...then he ranked his choices. I simplified this a LOT, but I know he was so nervous to know where he'd go, even though I was pretty confident he'd get his number one choice: Knoxville. He was notified that he did, indeed, match on Tuesday (I wasn't aware that some students don't match at all!), so he'd get to find out where he was going on Thursday. It wasn't just at UAB (didn't realize that either until that day), but all 4th year medical students would find out where they would go to residency on Thursday at 11am central time. It could not be released until then.

So on that day, anticipation was high. It was interesting to look around this packed room at future pediatricians, anesthesiologists, psychiatrists, obstetricians...on and on. Slides were played of pictures of this class of 162 students, but everyone just wanted to know! This was their lives here! Mitch did not want to be first; I wanted Mitch to be first because I knew where lunch was at. :)

When the time came, they called 5 students at a time to hand them their envelopes to go into a hallway to see where they were going. If they so chose, they then came back to read where they would be going. This was a pretty fast process too. When they were called, they placed one dollar in a basket, and whoever was LAST got all of the money. So you can imagine how much it would suck to be second to last. 5 names, 5 more names, 10 names, 20...still no call for Mitch Dizon.

This went on for forever until we finally heard, "Last 5 names, and I'm so sorry if you're second to last." No way. My hopes were high because I demanded half the money if he was last. You will NEVER guess who was SECOND TO LAST. Did you guess? MITCH DIZON. It was hysterically...a RIP OFF! ha, just kidding. Kind of. I told him that he could probably take the girl that did get it. She was small enough. Anyway, off he went to get his envelope. Cameras were ready. His parents couldn't take it anymore. Then he walked out from the hallway, gave the thumbs up and we all knew before he announced, "I'm Mitch Dizon, and I'll be studying Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville!" And the crowd went WILLLD! :) Let me add here that Knoxville only picks 3 residents from the country to go there. I'm so glad he got exactly what he wanted, and while I will miss him, I know that great things are in store for him. Thanks, Mitch, for being a great friend and inviting me to be a part of such a momentous day. And you still owe me 162 bucks.

Announcing his matchAfter each student announced where they were going, they went over to this map to write it down. I was glad Mitch knew where Tennessee was.
Mitch Dizon, (almost) MD
Isn't THAT fitting?