Still checking my email for possible residency interviews. It's a very anxiety-provoking process. I check my email something like 20 times a day (I thought having a smart phone would be great, but it turns out to distract me more than help me). It's getting to be a crazy obsession. The plus side is that I've gotten two radiology interviews and four intern year interviews. It's somewhat reassuring, but it hasn't stopped the anxiety (and I did get one rejection from an intern year program).
One thing I'm really glad I managed to do was to take a large chunk of time off in December and January (prime interview season). With the number of interviews I hope to get (and an equivalent number of intern year interviews since I want to be in the same city for both), I will be traveling all the time. Our school only lets us take off one day per week of class for interviews and (by my calculations) I would have to break that rule to fit in the number of interviews I hope to get. Some classmates who don't have the time off are wondering how to deal with this dilemma. Since the med school administration always strictly adheres to their rules (and no amount of logic will let them change it), the best option is to either call in sick or ask your resident/attending and not bother with the administration. Nonetheless, the administration may find out and you'd have to deal with their fury.
Tips to any future medical student:
1. It's best to plow through 3rd year and free up 4th year for easy rotations/research/time off so that you could focus more on residency applications and interviews.
2. When it comes to needing time off, follow the old adage: It's better to take the time off and apologize afterwords than to ask for permission and not get it (because you won't get it).
Congrats on the interviews, dude! I totally know the obsessive email checking you are going through. I even have an alert on my email program on my phone and I STILL check it all the time.
ReplyDeleteBecause I'm still missing an LOR, I'm not hearing much from a lot of places, but I have landed three definite interviews and two strong considerations. I took November and December off for interviewing, so I hope that is enough. I think your advice about med admin be damned is good, although I do know somebody who was forced to do his medicine sub-i over again for missing too much time for interviews...
Yikes. Good thing I have my Sub-I scheduled really late. Congrats on your own interviews and I'm sure you'll get the 3rd LOR (I just got my late one today - it was the first person I asked).
ReplyDeletebtw, I could set my phone to check my email also, but I decided I don't want my phone buzzing when I can't get to it (it'll be eating at me until I get a chance to check the email).