The Road to Residency

Since I decided to stay in West Michigan a few days, I am waiting to get my computer out until I get home. (I really don't want to unpack my car to get to it.) Therefore, you don't get any pictures and stories of Traverse City...yet. I will hopefully do that before we leave for North Carolina on Saturday.

But, I figured since interview season is coming up for Joel I would write a blog about interviews, match and residency.

Sometime next summer (end of June/beginning of July) Joel will be starting Residency! Whoohoo! The road to residency is long, but we are nearing the end. It is obvious that Joel needs to finish medical school, so I am not going to tell you about that. Anyway, I have already told you about school and rotations. So, I am going to tell you about the interview and match process.

Joel had to submit applications in the beginning of September to apply to residency programs. Joel wants to become a Neurologist, so he is looking at neurology programs. There are 8 D.O. (Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine) neurology program, so he is applying to all of them. He is also applying to multiple M.D. neurology programs--I think around 8. I know all the D.O. ones, so here is that list (these are not in any particular order):
St. John Hospital (Detroit)
Botsford Hospital (Detroit)
Garden City (Detroit)
Henry Ford Hospital (Detroit)
Sparrow Hospital (Lansing, MI)
Dayton, OH
Erie, PA
Las Vegas, NV

Currently, we are in the waiting period. We are waiting for Joel to get interviews. He actually has two already, but hopes to get a lot more! He has one in Milwaukee (M.D. program) mid-November. He has one in Erie, PA in mid-Dec. (Kyper and I will be joining him when he interviews in Milwaukee, since his brother and sister-in-law live there. It gives us a great excuse to visit them!) I'll keep you updated on what interviews Joel gets and when, so you can keep us in your prayers.

So interview season starts this fall and will continue probably through January, which brings us to the next step...Match!!

After all the interviews are done, Joel will rank his choices and the hospitals rank the future doctors they interviewed. They do this sometime before Feb. 14. Because, on Feb. 14 we hopefully* find out where we are headed for residency.

*A little side note though--D.O. and M.D have separate match days, so Joel wants to get into a D.O. program. He will rank the 8 programs I listed above and we will find out on Feb. 14 if he got in to any of those. If for some reason and only if he does not get into those, he will participate in the M.D. match, which is later in March. I don't know the exact date.


We have heard that the Match tends to favor the student more than the hospital.

We would love to stay in the Detroit area to stay close to friends and family, but we will be happy with whatever Joel gets.  He is pursing his dream and God's calling for him and that is the most important thing.

There you have it. Interviews and Match Day! After Match day there are only a few short months until graduation and then residency begins.

Stories and pictures from our 3 weeks in Traverse City will be coming.