SMS (“Stanford Medical School”) Unplugged is a forum for students to chronicle their experiences in medical school. The student-penned entries appear on Scope once a week; the entire blog series can be found in the SMS Unplugged category.
On March 20, in synchrony with thousands of senior medical students across the country, I received an envelope that determined where I would be spending the next three years of my life for residency training.
My academic advisor, Oscar Salvatierra, MD, had come out of retirement to share this day with his students. He had supported us over the years, from studying for our first-year exams to choosing a specialty and applying to residency. He supported my husband and me in the additional challenges of tackling medical school as a married couple, guided us through my husband’s decision to pursue a combined MD/PhD degree, and even weighed in on our decision to have a child during medical school. Now, on Match Day, I was so grateful that he was the one to call my name and hand me my letter.
“Open. Open. Open,” my daughter demanded, grasping for the bright red envelope with the same steady persistence that she normally uses to ask for raisins. My husband took her from my arms so that my shaking fingers were free to open the envelope and unfold the letter. It was real, right there in black and white: I’ll be staying at Stanford for a pediatrics residency.
I grinned, then I cried, then I started soaking in the hugs and congratulations of my family, friends, and mentors who all knew how desperately I had hoped for this outcome. But the fun part about Match Day is that there is more than just your own news to celebrate. Within minutes, I was fighting through the crowds to track down my friends and classmates to find out where they had matched. I was incredibly impressed, but not at all surprised, to hear about the excellent programs they will be attending across the country.
As I stepped back into my apartment later that morning, clutching my residency Match letter, it felt a lot like bringing a newborn baby home from the hospital: it was odd and unsettling to walk back through familiar doors into my familiar home when our family’s life was all at once so deeply changed. In residency (like becoming a parent), I am going to have to work harder than I’ve ever worked before, and be challenged in ways I haven’t even imagined. But at the same time, I have no doubt that it will be worth it, and that this was exactly what I want for my life.
I hope that my classmates are feeling the same excitement to start the next phase of the journey. Congratulations to the Stanford Medicine Class of 2015 on an incredible Match!
Jennifer DeCoste-Lopez is a final-year Stanford medical student who will soon start a residency in pediatrics at Stanford. She was born and raised in Kentucky and went to college at Harvard. She currently splits her time between clinical rotations, developing a new curriculum in end-of-life care, and caring for her young daughter.
Photo courtesy of Jennifer DeCoste-Lopez
