Well this year has been full of final rotations in my last year of medical school and applying for residency. After shuttling back and forth for electives from Vancouver to Halifax and random spots in between, I sat down to apply to residency programs.

I was a little over zealous and applied to numerous programs across four provinces and three specialties. The past two weeks have been hectic to say the least as I traveled across the country interviewing for these residency programs. I flew from east to west starting in Halifax, and it seemed like I was in a different city each day. I have no idea how many flights I took, how many shuttles, how many trains but I do remember the obnoxious woman who took my face cream and toner because the bottle was 120ml not 100.

Interviews were a little crazy but nothing tops off the day when I had four interviews in one day. Of the 17 interviews I was offered I only attended 14 in order to preserve some form of sanity :) Now I am in the sticky situation where I must rank these programs by the beginning of March.

The match is a complicated system: Each programs ranks the individuals that have been interviewed and each applicant must rank the programs as well. All this information is entered into some computer and then on Match Day out spews the results... which is a legally binding contract. Hence each applicant MUST go to program that they are matched to. As such if you do not want to go to a certain place, you do not rank it!

So right now I am making up my mind as to which specialty to rank first and next what city to rank first. In case you have not put in your two cents about which specialty you can vote NOW (ignore Emergency Medicine... I did not apply for that)

As for cities, Vancouver is currently very appealing but am I ready to leave the Ontario-Quebec corridor??

Match Day is late in March, so keep an eye out for an update at the end of March.