End of Residency

MCATS, interviews, acceptance letters, orientation, classes, tests, small groups, sim labs, cadaver labs, call, call and more call, pagers going off, rotations, MICU, TICU, PICU, NICU, trauma, surgery, medicine, thank heavens for an elective month, black weekends, gold weekends, boards, poster presentations, short coats, interviews, match day, envelopes open, old friends, new friends, intern year, July 1, shift work, house officer, charting, charting, charting, off service rotations, conference, ACEP, Moses Cone, adult side, peds side, backside, back up, consults, charting, always more charting, champagne taps, intubations, more conference, tox tutorials, chief year, moonlighting, interviews, contracts signed, final month, final shift, counting down...counting down....

Hard to believe after 4 years of hospital volunteering, 1 year of research, 4 years of med school and 3 years of residency my husband is all DONE! On Monday, he’ll start as an attending physician at a private hospital here in W-S. Unless you know a resident, it’s hard to really describe what a long, hard road it is to become a physician. (Anne actually did a pretty excellent job summarizing it here.) You spend the better part of a decade sacrificing your free time, sleep, social life and energy in pursuit of this career, all the while racking up massive amounts of debt. But all the residents I know, including my husband, are so committed and passionate about their careers. It’s really an amazing thing to have witnessed this whole journey from start to finish. It’s been a long time coming to get to this point and I could not be more proud of my husband!

First year of med school (Spring 2005)

White coat ceremony (October 2006)

Lucky to have known these guys from the very beginning of med school! (Summer 2008)

Match Day…finding out we get to stay at WFU! (March 2009)

Match Day: Med School Friends (March 2009)

Med School Graduation (2009)

Residency Friends (August 2011)

Residency wives & girlfriends who have supported me along the way! (May 2012)

Emergency Medicine Residents (June 2012)

With program director, Dr S. & co-chief resident, Locke (June 2012)

Residency Graduation Dinner (June 2012)

Proud parents! (June 2012)

Congratulations, Husband!

Happy Wife, Happy Life

Happy Wedding Day, Kate + Charlie!

I adore this couple and I couldn’t be more honored to have been there on the day when they start their journey together as husband and wife.  They have such a cute “how we met” story, too.  Charlie is the best friend of Kate’s brother-in-law, Locke. So Kate and Charlie met at Anne and Locke’s wedding and have been dating ever since.  We became friends with Anne and Locke when they returned here for residency (they were both Wake undergrads, and Anne was a sorority sister… so now they are back on home turf in Winston-Salem) and met K+C through them.  Their wedding was held in Charlottesville, which happens to be my 2nd favorite city in the South.  (After Winston, of course.)  It was beautiful, fun and joyous – exactly as the start to a happy life together should be.  Congratulations, ya’ll!

Me + My Better Half

Girlfriends Jamie and Anne (sister of the bride, too)

Anne and Locke

Charleston: Easter Weekend 2009

Pictures trump words. Wonderful weekend, beautiful city.
(If you want the play-by-play, get it here).

Match Day

For the last 3 years, I have been explaining one confusing concept of the medical school path to friends and family alike: Match Day.

“Yep, just one day in March when every 4th year medical student in the country finds out at noon where they’re going to spending the next 3-5 years of their life.” If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a hundred times. Match Day always felt like this elusive, far off day that would signal the grand finale of medical school. Finally, this morning, Match Day arrived.

The long journey of medical school is nearly over...
So, what's next?

The months leading up to Match Day are a flurry of reviewing programs, submitting applications, writing personal statements and interviews. Gracious, the interviews. Who came up with this plan? Let’s take a bunch of cash-strapped, anxiety-ridden students and make them tour the country, staying at Super 8’s and making meals out of heavy appetizers at the interview dinners, all in an effort to narrow down which programs you like and vice versa. It’s a process that is exhaustive and exhausting, all in one. (And I was just the casual bystander, who graced but one interview dinner with my presence!) Despite the insanity of interview season, there seems to be value in the process of elimination that takes place on both ends and somehow, someway it all works out.

Fast forward to March 19th. Students, spouses, children, parents, and even some residents and attendings crowd the common area outside the room where the envelopes await. The tension is palpable, as people anxiously glance down at their watches, willing it to be noon. At twelve on the dot, the doors open. Much like the gunshot of a foot race, there is an initial rush and then a traffic jam as people clamor to get through the double doors. We head back to a table where envelopes with C last names gather and there it is, waiting for us. Without much fanfare, the envelope is opened. I’m behind the camera lens, and it’s hard to tell what his initial reaction is and my heart skips a beat for just a second. But then, there is a smile and he’s waving it at me and I put down the camera to see… “Wake Forest, Wake Forest,” he’s saying. There is relief and smiling and laughing and hugging.

The envelope, please.

The one day in March when every 4th year finds out where they are spending the next 3-5 years of their life has arrived, and with it has arrived good news. We are staying – we are staying here in this little city that has become home to us over nine years. We are staying with good friends with whom relationships have blossomed through the shared journeys of being students and better halves, respectively. He is staying in an emergency department with attendings and residents whom he respects and looks forward to working with, and I am staying in a job that still excites and inspires me each day. With one swipe of the letter opener, we are staying. Match Day has come, and with it the news that medical school comes to an end but our life in Winston goes on.

Future Docs. The Wives. Happy to be townies!

4th Year: Celebrate We Will

Yesterday we found out our friends, Zac and Jamie, are going to be staying here in Winston for Zac's optho residency! We are so excited for them, since this was their first choice AND a very highly competitive program. That's right, take a moment to send your mental congrats to Dr Z! It hardly seems fair now that they know their match and the rest of us have to wait til another EIGHT friggin weeks, but that's what the Match Day Gods have decided, so wait we shall...and in the meantime, celebrate we will. Upon finding out the news, we rounded up a few buddies to get together to cheers to the good news. Matt demonstrated his cake decorating prowess with an eyeball adorned ice cream cake, and Zac appropriately sliced right into the sclera. (Yes, I confess, I looked that up. I'm not that on top of my eyeball terminology.)

The cake disappeared quickly, the Prosecco flowed and before long, the wii fit came out. All this on a school night? Whoever said med school was tough forgot to put the foot note on that says... Ummm yea. Except fourth year. Enjoy that, seniors. It's hard to believe 4th year is here, and trust me, we're soaking it up.

Even puggle got in on the celebratory bevs!

These fine gents are your future physicians!

Winston's Blocks are A-Rockin'

There is nothing like a street festival or fair to bring out the finest in any community. Last night, we went downtown to the Rock the Block festival. There was a huge outpouring of people in the streets and bands played on 4 different corners. I just kept looking around wondering where all these people were all the time. Does our wonderful city really and truly contain this many people? We got drinks at Foothills and headed outside to hear a band that vacillated from challenging Don Henley/Eagles vibes to pounding out some hard Seether/Nickelback. Good, if you could pry yourself away from the following distractions:

*Two young girls behind the drummer dancing with such violent hair whipping I wonder if their latissimus required RICE treatment the next day

*A strikingly bald fellow with a navy blue polo tucked into the most hiked up navy blue khakis, complemented by a little blue pinging light in his ear (yes, this gentleman apparently found it neccessary to wear his blue tooth the entire concert. Just in case he got that oh so important call, he could shout over Freebird..."What? I can't hear you! I'm at a concert! I do have a life!... oh.... I came alone.")

*An extremely unkempt middle age woman in a dirty jean skirt and bare feet dancing with a small tow headed child who was delirious from regular pop and staying up past her bedtime, and who quite obviously belonged to the man in a torn sleeve tank top and jorts who was busy hitting on the lady with the gypsy skirt and "all I need's a glow stick" hand motions

*And then there were these fellows....

A scrappier bunch could nar be found. (Thanks goes to Jamie, the picture is hers.) Who says you can't have fun in med school?

We had a great time though, and it was nice to get to do something a little different from our usual weekend routines. Winston is growing up quickly and it's exciting to see it's nightlife and it's population growing and shifting as it discovers what kind of city it wants to be.