So, I might be slightly exaggerating in my title as residency isn’t the rest of my life, but it certainly is setting the stage for the rest of my life! Now that interviews are finally over for me, I currently face the arduous task of figuring out what would be the best place for me to learn and grow for the next 3-4 years of my life. You would think that after so many interviews, it would have become much more clear about what I really want in a program. But, I think things have become much more muddled for me. Things that seemed super important to me in the beginning of the interview season aren’t as big of a priority to me anymore and then new things have been emerging as big tickets for me. It’s hard to judge the culture and mission of a program in a single day and evening dinner…so much is based on first impressions and gut feelings…I just don’t want to make the wrong choice and maybe have a bit of decision regret.
What shall I do?! Rank order lists have to be compiled, submitted, and certified by February 24th or otherwise, I will shut myself out of the whole matching process altogether. But, it’s just so hard! I can’t decide what is more important to me. I used to think that the perfect program would just come to me. But after seeing all these programs, I think I could be happy at a lot of them and in fact, it’s just a matter of the location, people, and program specifics all melding together for a great learning experience. I’ll be talking to my inner circle and maybe making some big spreadsheets that compare multiple programs all at the same time and hopefully, I’ll come up with a list that lets me sleep at night!
