I matched to my home program in a competitive specialty. It was low on my list because as a medical student I saw how miserable the residents were and how difficult/hierarchical some of the faculty could be. I was hoping the bitterness would fade with time, and it did to some extent. But now I'm starting residency in a few days and wish I felt the same pride and excitement that my classmates who matched at their top choices feel.
Wondering if anyone has been in a similar position and if so, what helped to reframe your perspective?
I was very disappointed in my Match results. I didn't match into my chosen specialty and scrambled into a spot in a small community program, sight unseen. It was a small hospital in the suburbs, and I was sure that I was going to get a subpar education. I mourned the career that I had expected to have. And yes, I was very jealous of my classmates who got their desired specialty and their top choice program.
At this point in my life, 12 years after graduating from med school, I have zero regrets. I actually had a wonderful experience during residency - my co-residents were kind, thoughtful, and genuinely good people. My attendings were great teachers and I learned a lot, with a wide variety of cases. This specialty has been a good fit for me, much better than the specialty that I thought that I wanted.
There is this tendency to treat Match Day like it's the "first day of the rest of your life!" The thing is -
life is not that linear. Match Day, and the decisions that are associated with it, are like any other decision in life - sometimes, for some people, it works out great. For a lot of people, however, it doesn't.
Sure, I know some people from med school who chose well - they're happy in their specialty and they had a good experience in residency. However, I know of many, many others who regretted their specialty choice. They either stuck it out and are pretty unhappy, or they switched. I also know of many others who matched into their top residency choice and found that it was not as wonderful as they thought it was. You have to remember that many people choose their top residency choice based on fairly limited information - what you can glean during a curated day long visit. Sometimes they were fooled by the song-and-dance that was presented to them.
Furthermore, you have to remember, that
life is not static and things change. That gruff, difficult attending that everyone dreads rotating with? They might retire the month before you're supposed to go on their service. Or the curriculum could change and you go to another clinical site for that rotation instead. All sorts of things happen. My husband got involved in a research project at his future residency hospital when he was a med student/prelim intern. He was excited to continue with that project when he started his categorical position there....only to find that his mentor had left for another job a month before he started.
So go in with an open mind. Going to your top choice residency wouldn't have guaranteed you a happy life, going to your lower-choice residency doesn't doom you to being unhappy.
