Match week

The culmination of four years of medical school is the third week in March when all students find out at the same time where they will be placed for residency. Residency is like an apprenticeship for doctors - you do the job under supervision of more experienced doctors and get paid a partial salary. Residency lasts three years or more depending on the specialty you choose.

So the next step for us is a residency which would start in July, and we will find out this week which residency and where. Leading up to this moment, C.J. applied for various residency programs and went on interviews and then ranked his top choices in a computer system.

The programs he interviewed with also ranked their top choices. During match week, the computer system uses an algorithm to "match" students with residency programs based on how each party ranked the other. Tomorrow we get an e-mail that says either we matched or we didn't. If we match, we'll find out where on Friday.

Did that make any sense?

The bottom line is, this week is a big deal. We will find out where we will live for the next three to four years, and even more importantly, we will find out what specialty C.J. will work in for the rest of his career.

From the beginning of this journey C.J. wanted to be an emergency room physician. It was the whole point when he left his job as a paramedic to take pre-med classes oh so long ago.

However, ER is a competitive specialty. Most spots are filled by U.S. medical students. Very few foreign med grads get ER spots. So although C.J. applied for an ER residency and has several programs on his rank list, it's not enough to guarantee a spot.

If he does not match with an ER program, he will enter another round formerly known as "the scramble." It has a new name now, but I still call it the scramble because that's what it feels like we'll be doing. It is an appropriately frightening name.

If he does not match tomorrow he will receive a list of programs that still have open spots. He will then rank new choices from what's available and hope he gets picked in the second round.

The programs available in the scramble will most certainly not be ER since almost all those spots will fill due to high demand. Spots left over will be mostly in internal medicine, family medicine and psychiatry. C.J. will have to settle for a specialty that is not his first choice, and it could be anywhere.

But that wouldn't be terrible. At least he would be working as a doctor in just a few months time. He can build a satisfying career with whatever specialty he would get in the second-round match.

The worst case scenario, the unthinkable, would be if he doesn't match in the first or second round and gets nothing at all. This means he would have to apply again next year and go through the interview process all over again for the 2013 match. Isn't that a sobering thought?

It's like torture, waiting for Monday to come.

Foreign medical students do have a benefit over U.S. students, they can sign on to less competitive programs outside of the match and avoid this process. We know several SGU students who have taken this "pre-match" in internal medicine. They know exactly where they will be going in July.

We've made it a little harder on ourselves and are taking our chances on a risky bet. The odds are not in our favor to get the ER placement. All this work is coming down to one week and we could be in for a big shock.

We have spent countless hours talking about how to rank the programs he interviewed at and what the strategy will be if he has to apply for a residency in the second round. And I do mean countless hours. I feel like my head is going to explode from talking and thinking about it so much.

I've been  wishing the week would hurry up and get here but now I'm scared to death of the news we're going to get. Is anyone else feeling the stress?