I was on a surgery rotation and had just finished pre-rounding with my team, I checked my email and it said congratulations you have matched. When I matched in 2013, we would find out where the next day.
Our administrators/Deans at the med school told us that we could text them to let us know by a certain time if we hadn't been called by our program. I think my program has since changed the way they do things, but for whatever reason I didn't get a phone call from them till 2ish PM. So around 8-9am I texted my dean and asked him where I matched. He told me... it was a little anti-climactic for me because some of my fellow classmates had gotten phone calls from their programs super early. So I was anxiously waiting for a while.
I am one of the rare people that went down a good bit on their rank list - right to the middle of it. But when I talked to others they all said they matched at their top choice. To be honest I'm not sure I believe them all. Maybe they are all that awesome, or maybe people in medicine are obsessed with saving face to others. I'm not sure... in any case, I was actually a little shocked and disappointed, but like everyone else I pretended not to be. I took a little time for myself to process privately and then moved forward. Honestly I'm so grateful I get to be an Ophtho and I'm happy with my fellowship match in the end, so I think things have worked out. And honestly if any of you know my story, you know I'm lucky to have matched at all
So some semi-optimistic pearls:
1) Matching into Ophthalmology is super hard
2) apparently most people end up in their top 3 and are really happy. (?)
3) Almost any program in this country will give you good training and all will allow you to be an ophthalmologist.
4) Match day is always this really exciting but anxiety provoking experience. It's normal to be nervous because people don't like staring a lack of control of a situation right In the face. The stakes are higher than the last time you had to apply to something (med school) and the system is foreign and scary. But it does work out in the end.
5) remember that you are very lucky people, and you ranked places for a reason.
6) just keep swimming!
Good luck.
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