For fourth-year medical students, the key to their future is Match Day mail
V
Then she woke up. Konda looked at the clock. The time was 3:30 a.m. "It seemed so real. I sat in the bed telling myself that it was just a dream."
Welcome to the hours leading to Match Day, when fourth-year medical students learn where they will serve their residencies. For students, Match Day is the point of release for four, maybe eight, years of pressure. Always held at noon EST on a Thursday, this year’s Match Day was March 22.
Until her dream that Sunday morning, March 18, Konda was more excited than nervous. "I was looking forward to learning about this new step in my career."
Konda and her husband, Matt Albertson, a software engineer, had begun preparing for that next step last fall when they charted residency programs and location qualities suitable to both of them.
"We spoke a lot about what we hoped for and where we would be comfortable," she said. "We only applied to where we thought Matt could do well job-wise."
Konda hoped to pursue a residency program that combined internal medicine and pediatrics. She interviewed with several programs.
Last February, Konda submitted a ranking list to the National Residency Matching Program (NRMP), which also received lists from all of the programs that had interviewed medical students. The NRMP made the matches.
F
ourth-year medical students take it one day at a time during Match Day week.For example, Monday is known as "Black Monday." That is when a student learns by e-mail whether he or she has matched. Students who don’t match are paged just after the clock strikes noon. For them, Tuesday becomes the "Scramble," where they work with Medical School officials to arrange interviews in programs with unfilled spaces.
On Monday, Konda’s beeper remained silent. The e-mail arrived at 12:07 p.m., telling her that she had matched. Suddenly, Thursday seemed a long way away.
"I began to get nervous after Matt said that he started thinking about the future," she said. "We’re started using the ‘if,’ word a lot. ‘If we stay here.’ ‘If we’re in a new job.’
On Match Day, family, friends, faculty and others huddled in the hallway outside the student lounge of the Bio-Med Building. Konda and Albertson, her mother, Indira, and younger brother, Venu, entered and camped in a corner.
Five minutes before noon, residency letters were delivered to mailboxes. Konda joined a line of students entering the lounge. In the hallway, people closed ranks. They peered in. No one spoke.
Suddenly, shouts, even shrieks flowed from the lounge. One woman rushed into the arms of her parents.
"I got it," shouted a young man who thrust his arm skyward. There was hugging, holding and lots of tears.
Konda emerged, approaching Albertson with a wide smile. She shared the letter. He smiled, too.
It was her first choice — the combined residency program in internal medicine and pediatrics at the University of Chicago School of Medicine.
"When I was walking toward my family, I was getting emotional," she said. "I saw University of Chicago and I had to read it again to make sure. It’s a great combination of strong academics and a supportive environment. I’m surprised how overwhelmed I felt."
Last November, Konda spent a one-month pediatric gastroenterology elective at the University of Chicago. Both she and Albertson have family in and around the Windy City.
"I had no idea where we would end up and where I would be taking Matt," Konda said. "I couldn’t have asked for more in terms of the support I’ve gotten from him. ‘Wherever we end up, we’ll be fine,’ he kept telling me. This even though I may have been dragging him across the country.
"You spend four years of your life working very hard. I’m so happy to be headed to a place that has a lot of the qualities that we were looking for."
"It’s kind of a rush," said Albertson. "I couldn’t imagine what it is like to have your life in someone else’s hands," he said, referring to the matching program.