medical school

good luck!!

i finalized my list post-call, on 3.5hrs of sleep in 34hrs of wakefulness, and through actively revolting contact lenses. i think we're good, lined up, imma try not to think about gary anderson in '98

More like Vinatieri in the snow.

i do have a soft spot for new england

what's happening, gbx?

http://harrypotter.wikia.com/wiki/Sorting_Hat

nb i have not read these books but this seems about right

I wonder if the sorting hat is actually an NP-complete problem

Awwww yeah. I have been harassing the 4th year students with us in the MICU this month about their rank lists and such and such, and totally forgot to harass you. It is the most magical time~

The 3rd Friday in March is awesome, assuming the 3rd Monday in March is not the worst day.

(nb for others: gbx is now reaching the end of his direct involvement in the matching process. He has spent the past several months going around to programs and interviewing them and being interviewed by them. Either tonight or tomorrow or the next day (I forget) he and the other 4th year students are required to submit their final ranked list of programs to the National Resident Matching Program, which is for all intents and purposes a big computer in the sky, or a sorting hat as above.)

(So between now and the 3rd Monday in March, what the big sorting hat computer does is take every 4th year student's ranks and put them against the ranks of every residency program. The algorithm roughly favors the applicant, so that you will be assigned to your top choice program unless your top choice has also been selected by other people who that program likes more than you.)

(What happens on the 3rd Monday in March is that you get an email saying "You have matched!" or the worst e-mail, which means you have been thrust into the pool of the unsorted, and you spend the remainder of your week attempting to pair yourself with a program whose spots remain unfulfilled. You do not get to find out exactly WHERE you have matched until Noon EST on the 3rd Friday in March, which is also typically the 2nd day of the NCAA tournament, and sometimes also St. Patrick's Day. What I'm suggesting is that you and your friends drink like champions, unless things go poorly.)

are you still matching psych programs gbx?

yup

good luck bro

GL gbx!

nervous.gif

Exciting! good luck!

gbx is going to be literally psyched in literally just a few weeks time when he gets his residency

Good luck, gbx - hope you wind up somewhere fabulous!

hope you become a really good psychiatrist, gbx. This world needs compassionate and excellent mental health pros in it, I'm glad you're gonna take that on.

^^ I heartily agree. It's a difficult specialty you've chosen. I hope you and your patients prosper well.

exciting! crossing all my fingers for you, gbx! :) :)

you'll do fine, man. is minnesota your #1?

...

i do have a soft spot for new england

― well if it isn't old 11 cameras simon (gbx), Wednesday, February 20, 2013 10:11 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Did you pick any hospitals here? Lord knows we have a lot of them. Also, good luck GBX!

oh that's bad luck isn't it, ignore me

I have asked every 4th year student I've worked with in the past couple of months how their rank list was going and where they wanted to go, and they usually have no problem talking about it. Some people I knew did lock it under wraps, but usually there's not just one program you're really really really hoping for and then some other losers. (I was prepared enough to bring 5 university T-shirts with me on Match Day, even though I was like 97% sure I was going to get one of my top 2, and reasonably sure I was going to get my #1. I would have been delighted with any of those 5, though.)

Plus It's always super interesting to listen to people talk through why they want to do what they want to do. I ALWAYS ask 3rd year students what they want to do when they grow up within like fifteen minutes of meeting them, because you basically get them to explain how their mind works.

haha, yeah, i've actually been p forthright in person about where i want to go now that the ROL is in, for some reason i'm feeling coy about it on ~the internet~

but basically my top choices are all in places i've lived before, or currently live.

i have also been asking MS3s about what they want to be when they grow up, for p much the same reason---ppl will lay out some telling facts about their values/schema when they explain why they want to, say, look at skin for the rest of their life (my anatomy partner explicitly stated her intentions for derm on the ACTUAL FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL and lo it came to pass...she was of course the perfect dermatological candidate (GUNNER)...she also told me that "yeah, psych suits you..." in the way that well-meaning southern ladies say "bless your heart"). on the one hand, i hate being yet another person asking them that loaded question, on the other: a fourth-year or an intern is probably the safest person in the hierarchy to confess your---let's face it---lack of interest in whatever it is you happen to be doing at that time.

also i will admit that i savor ever so slightly the fact that i am barely more informed than the third-years, and have Pearls to offer. mostly this involves using Epic, and not actual medicine. (PRO-TIP: find yr senior's preferred note template, and copy it over to yr dotphrases, they will be astounded by yr mind-melding and think of you favorably)

oh, Epic, famously written on the most terrifying legacy platform ever devised by the community of sick freaks who call themselves programmers

this article is almost definitely about working at Epic

I say this without irony: EMRs need a Linus Torvalds, or something.

a high-quality, open format (and widely used) digital health record would make the world a better place, full stop

gawande should make that his next project

just finished checklist manifesto last night btw and while it was good and otm i thought complications was way better

imma try not to think about gary anderson in '98

lol gary anderson came to my high school when he was with the steelers in the '80s

Oh my God yes, if someone can make an EMR that is a) not terrible b) not clearly designed to facilitate billing (it is SO depressing to have to write shitty notes so Insirers can be billed properly) and c) cost effective enough to be widely used towards a goal of d) offering access to multiple facilities, it'd be the greatest thing in medicine since, like, HAART.

The VA CPRS is legit the closest thing I've used. It is stupid and ugly but you can find EVERYTHING and make as much template as you want or as much free text as you want.

VAs are pretty much the best

Except for the ancillary staff and the whole "weekend" thing. The vertical integration parts are pretty rad, though.

so i should follow up on my posts a few months ago:

i'm applying to a bunch of post-baccalaureate programs similar i think to what gbx did (?) - vermont and uconn are my first choices i think - vermont is particularly cool because it offers research opportunities (a major application weakness of mine) and a guaranteed interview at its med school to those successfully complete the program. in any event classes will start in late august or so

in late may or early june (as soon as i humanly can; i have to take my boards first which i can't do until i graduate) i'm going to thailand to volunteer at that clinic i mentioned earlier (www.maetaoclinic.com) as a pharmacist for a few months until classes start. i'm really excited about this and am in the midst of reading up on the region and it's politics etc. a friend of mine did the same thing a couple years ago and a professor or mine has been there a few times so i'm using them as resources to prepare as best i can. lots of vaccinations i have to make sure i'm up on, and daily prophylactic meds i'll have to take while i'm there, for one thing.

but anyway, IT BEGINS

stoked for the madness

(What happens on the 3rd Monday in March is that you get an email saying "You have matched!" or the worst e-mail, which means you have been thrust into the pool of the unsorted, and you spend the remainder of your week attempting to pair yourself with a program whose spots remain unfulfilled. You do not get to find out exactly WHERE you have matched until Noon EST on the 3rd Friday in March, which is also typically the 2nd day of the NCAA tournament, and sometimes also St. Patrick's Day. What I'm suggesting is that you and your friends drink like champions, unless things go poorly.)

u https://dl.dropbox.com/u/9627011/photos/am0n.gif breh??

post-call, feeling sanguine, but that might be the 3hrs of sleep talking

:) good luck dude!! in these situations the waiting is the worst worst worst part by far ime

t-minus 30min

this is always how I feel http://youtu.be/A90TYC0BiwE (spoilers if u havent watched the wire)

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v617/WidowOfDestiny/Jiggle_Panda.gif

http://www.netanimations.net/Dancing_skull.gif

WAHT DOES THIS MEAN

congratulations I bet

sorry, napping

MATCHED

http://novelnovice.files.wordpress.com/2010/11/matched_futures-rewritten_the-society.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/ZeO6hyk.jpg