The Match

Ladies and gentlemen, can I please have your attention. I've just been handed an urgent and horrifying news story. I need all of you, to stop what you're doing and listen. Tomorrow at 12:00 p.m., fourth year surgical residents all across the world will be opening an envelope that contains inside the location of where they will be spending the next 2-3 years of their lives. That’s right, it’s Match Day 2006 for Thoracic Surgeons!!! So it breaks down like this: 35 states. 88 programs. 150+ fellowship positions. 42 applicants. 27 of them speak English. You do the math. In the words of my Division Chief: “It’s a buyer’s market!”

So that leaves me with 365 days and counting to narrow this list down to 1 program and make a decision about where I will take my stand during the crucible of fellowship training. Fortunately, most of the programs can be quickly eliminated based on geography and lack of volume. After making some quick modifications to my excel-based decision calculator, we are left with the following options:

1. Los Angeles. UCLA Medical Center
2. Palo Alto. Stanford University
3. Denver. University of Colorado
4. Atlanta. Emory University
5. Ann Arbor. University of Michigan
6. Minneapolis. University of Minnesota
7. Rochester. The Mayo Clinic
8. St. Louis. Washington University
9. Durham. Duke University
10. New York. Columbia University
11. Cleveland. The Cleveland Clinic
12. Nashville. Vanderbilt University
13. Houston. The Texas Heart Institute
14. Houston. Baylor College of Medicine
15. Salt Lake City. University of Utah
16. Charlottesville. University of Virginia
17. Seattle. University of Washington

It may seem like this should be an easy thing to figure out, but let me tell you something: it’s not. The American Board of Thoracic Surgery doesn’t give you the opportunity to ease into getting to know these programs by asking a series of random questions, followed by a list of “must haves” and “must not haves” the way eHarmony does (I mean, that’s what people have told me). You have to just show up at the interview and figure out if you’re ready to commit to them or not.

The clock is ticking…