It's okay to be sad

The past couple of months have been hard. I would even extend that to a few months of sadness since the month leading up to Match Day was fraught with anxiety and stress. Since then, my life has been full of tears.

I’ve cried in places I never thought I’d be comfortable crying at, including multiple public parks, on an airplane, dinner at a fancy restaurant, on a catamaran cruising the Greek islands, during our class picture, in the school auditorium in front of my whole class, and the list goes on. By this point, I’ve gotten really good at crying silently, whether it’s in a public restroom stall or a car ride with friends.

I also stopped giving a shit if seeing me cry makes someone uncomfortable. Life is not all unicorns and rainbows and sadness needs to be normalized as much as happiness and the highlight reel of life that is splattered all over social media. This isn’t to say I cry in public to make a statement. I cry because I can’t hold in my grief any longer and need an outlet. A deluge of tears seems to do the job very well, if only temporarily.

Honestly, I don’t even know why I’m still so sad. I like to think that I’ve accepted the fact that I didn’t match and that I’ve made a plan for the next year to succeed. But every time I think I finally have things under control, a random comment or thought will trigger a wave of sadness and I feel the tears welling up.

So I’ve accepted the fact that I’m not over anything and allow myself to continue to feel the way I feel, only truly suppressing my emotions when absolutely necessary, such as during an important meeting with the ortho chairman (powerful men don’t like seeing women cry). Other than that, I embrace my sadness, let it all out, and hope that as the days pass, I will cry a little bit less.

When people ask if I’m doing okay, I don’t even bother with pleasantries anymore and go straight into, “No, I’m not.” Most times, I leave it at that but often I add, “I’m in a rough place.” Most people don’t know what to do with that, but I figure they should stop asking if they don’t want an honest answer (these are people who know my situation, not randos on the street).

I had a brief respite from sadness on vacation, where, for the most part, I was able to forget how shitty everything was going. I became an aunt (!) and the subsequent barrage of newborn pictures has brightened many of my days. I also spent some quality time in the motherland with family I hadn’t seen in years and relaxed for nearly a full week on the family homestead. It was soooo nice.

The peaceful homestead

Then I came back to reality where I had to pack up all my things, leave my best friend with whom I’d lived for 13 years, and move to an apartment I absolutely hate in a city where I know nobody. I had planned this early move before graduation to start kissing some ortho butt at my new program, get started on research, and start attending conferences to get my face out there before the onslaught of intern year began.

But these plans seem to be backfiring just as badly as my ortho dreams. The apartment I had rented on a house-hunting trip before vacation was supposed to be “luxury” and full of natural light but instead is dingy and dated*. The research coordinator is dragging her feet about getting me on a project and has stopped answering my emails. The general surgery coordinator said she will TRY to get me a month of ortho, although it’s not guaranteed (I was promised a month by the PD during my SOAP interview, which is the only reason I chose this program).

I know nobody at the morning ortho conferences and it’s weird to start introducing myself to random residents, especially since I don’t even know how that introduction would go. Am I a 4^th year med student since I haven’t graduated yet? A future surgery resident? Either way, I’m still embarrassed I didn’t match and feel like I’m being judged every time I mention it, which is something I need to work on hardcore for the next month or so.

In short, moving early seems to be a terrible mistake thus far, taking me away from my friends prematurely and getting nothing in return career-wise but rather sinking me back into despair and hopelessness about my future.

I had made pretty good progress over vacation to the point where I would go days without shedding a single tear. But I’ve seemed to regress pretty hardcore with this move and am back to being incapacitated with grief at least once a day.**

As before, I’m working on taking things day-by-day, finishing everything I need to get done so I’m still a functioning member of society, and looking forward to July 1 so I actually have something to do with my days instead of wallow in self-pity.

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*Apparently in this city, they REFUSE to show you the actual unit you’re renting. I insisted on seeing something other than the model unit (which wasn’t even my apartment’s layout), so they very reluctantly showed me an empty unit that would resemble mine in trimmings and would be of the same quality as mine. Let’s just say that their definition of resembling my apartment is very different than mine.

**For those concerned about my mental health, I may be extremely sad but that’s about where my symptoms of MDD end. Well, I haven’t been sleeping much or eating well, and I’ve lost interest in some things (such as packing or caring what people think of my emotions). But I’m functioning as well as any fourth year med student, that is, I don’t want to do anything, and for the most part, get everything done that needs to be done. So overall, given the circumstances, I’m doing well-ish.

Next steps

The news is very belated but I SOAPed "successfully" a couple of weeks ago into a general surgery preliminary position. "Successfully" is an optimistic term because I can't bring myself to be too excited about a one-year position, and thus another year of uncertainty about my future. But I'm fortunate to have a job and to be moving forward with my life and career, so there's that.

I'm not even close to being over the fact that I didn't match ortho. Some days are better than others, but most days involve tears, and I'm not generally a crier. I'm also finding it hard to be optimistic about my future, at this point wondering if I can even manage to match general surgery next year and thus have any sort of career.

I've had a lot of lows in medical school and in life but I can safely say that this is the worst I've felt in a very long time. The little amount of confidence I had going into the match has completely evaporated and I've lost most of the hope I used to have in the medical establishment and more specifically, ortho program directors. I was told that crushing away rotations by busting my butt and being personable would help me secure a spot at a program, and I was too naive to believe that. In the end, I played the game wrong because no amount of hard work can overcome test scores from two years ago.*

I don't know what the future holds for me, and that's really unsettling. I vacillate between feelings of "I got this. I'm totally getting into ortho next year," to "Fuuuuuuuck. I don't think I even have a shot at general surgery." It doesn't help that the stats are not in my favor. The chairman at an ortho program I did an away at said I have a 3% chance of matching into ortho next year. That's very scary.

Everyone tells me I need a backup plan if I don't match again, with the most likely one being categorical general surgery. While there are parts of gen surg that I honestly do enjoy, I'm still repulsed at the thought of operating on bowels for 30+ years. I'm trying to keep an open mind because that seems like the most likely outcome and it's not a bad one. But I want ortho SO BADLY that not being able to do it is devastating.

I'm also somewhat regretting taking the prelim position. My Achilles heel was my Step 1 score and there's absolutely nothing I can change about that. I'm much better in person than on paper and in theory I'm really good at winning people over.** That's where the suggestion for the prelim position came into play. What I didn't think of was delaying graduation to do more away rotations and some research. It would've given me exposure to the program where I did research as well as my away programs. This way I'd have 4 chances to win people over instead of the single one I currently have.

I keep reminding myself that the prelim spot is the best path for me, but that doesn't say much considering it's the best option out of a bunch of really shitty options. On the plus side, with the prelim I have a whole year of the ortho department getting to know me instead of a month. I can prove without a doubt that I'd be an awesome resident (instead of a program having to extrapolate from my performance as a 4th year rotator). I can also slide into an ortho spot if any resident decides to quit. So there are positives...if it all works out. If I fail again, I'll always wonder, "What if?"

I wish I could end on a positive note but there's not much positivity in my life right now. My dean tried to cheer me up by saying I was ranked in the top 10 at my top program, but they just didn't go down that far this year. From talking to the PD, it sounds like they went to number 6 or 7 on their list (they take 5 residents) so I was 3-4 people away from matching. I know this information was meant to make me feel better, but it has the opposite effect. It hurts that much more knowing how close I was to being an orthopaedic surgeon and now I'm scrambling for any sort of career at all.

I know life isn't fair and in the end, I'll be alright. I'll have a good degree and I'll probably be able to get some sort of categorical residency position. But I (most likely) won't get to do what I set out for when I quit my previous career to go to medical school. It sucks that the dream I've had for 6+ years was crushed because of bad luck (and poor pre-clinical study skills).

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* This came out whinier than anticipated. I take full responsibility for not matching. I knew what I needed to do to be competitive (crush Step 1) and I didn't deliver. But ever since that test, I've worked really hard to do everything right, crushing Step 2, honoring most of my rotations, and kicking butt on my aways. I also know people with my scores who got terrible feedback after their aways ("none of the residents want to work with you") but managed to match because their orthopaedic surgeon father made a phone call for them. Like I said, life isn't fair and I knew this was coming. It doesn't make the outcome any easier to stomach.

** So I was told. See previous paragraph about losing faith in people.

SOAP

I didn't match. Not the best way to come back to blogging after a 1+ year absence, but it is what it is.

I've been silent on here because I didn't want to post grumpy, sad things all the time. No one wants to read that. I was hoping to finally have some happy news after years of stress. But alas, that didn't happen and here we are.

To give some background to my story, I applied into ortho with low step scores (sub-230) and four interviews, so this didn't come as a too much of a surprise. Regardless, it still sucks.

I had a bad feeling about yesterday. I realistically only had a shot at one of my four interviews* (let's call it Program A) and when I sent them a "You're my #1" email, I got a somewhat noncommittal response. So I knew it was coming.

Having said all that, there were some reasons to be hopeful. My chairman is really good buddies with their chair and placed a call for me and our program director is also close with another attending at Program A. Both said that Program A had contacted them about me and said that they really liked me, I did a good job on my away, blah, blah, blah. I also met Program A's step cut-off, which is a rarity with my numbers and the competitiveness of ortho. Everything that could go in my favor was seemingly going in my favor, but unfortunately it still didn't work out.

So now I'm stuck going through SOAP, hoping to match a preliminary general surgery position and trying again next year. I was advised to try for Program A again because I had such a good shot this year and probably just barely missed the cut. I resisted at first because I figured if they didn't want me the first time then there's no reason for them to want me again. I equated it to a bad breakup where no one ever goes back to their number 5. A friend reminded me that if I'm using relationship metaphors for Match, then this should be considered a polygamous marriage rather than a monomagous relationship since they keep coming back for more every year. So I wisened up and at the last minute added Program A's prelim spots to my application list.

Now I wait.

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* My interviews were at my home program (which flat out told me they won't take me because of my Step score), at an away that also had a hard Step cutoff that I didn't meet (I didn't find this out until the first day of the away), and at a very popular northeast school that for some weird reason offered me an interview.