September was difficult as far as making sure our applications to residency were complete and sent off properly. With Mark so busy at his away rotations it was hard for him to do this on his own so I helped quite a bit. If you are planning on doing away rotations right before/during September 1st of application year make sure you've planned ahead and have mostly finished the ERAS application and letters of recommendation. Also, there are quite a few orthopedic programs that require supplemental forms to be filled out by your letter of recommendation writers. Research this carefully and make sure your LOR writers get these forms in time! Once applications were complete and sent we waited. I followed the forums on orthogate to see when people around the country received offers of interviews. This helped me to know that either we hadn't heard anything from a program but many other people had OR that I didn't need to freak out yet about not hearing from a program because nobody else had either!
It wasn't until October 20th that we received our first offer to interview at a program. About 6 days before that we discovered we were pregnant with our 3rd baby! It was a pretty exciting week. For the next few months I was constantly checking the computer for interview offers and notifying Mark immediately when they came so we could schedule them. In orthopedics, if you don't respond to offers very quickly you may not get the date that works best for you to interview. You might even lose your interview spot altogether! It was busy, and stressful. On top of that flights, hotels, and rental cars had to be reserved. All the while, you still have responsibilities to finish your classes of 4th year!
It wasn't until the first week of February that our last interview was finished. Creating a rank list was the next task at hand. Every program has pros and cons so this took considerable amount of thought and prayer. The deadline for rank list finality was February 23rd. Since then, we have been "patiently" waiting for this upcoming week to arrive. In 3 days we will be notified of a match or no match status. In 6 days, if we match, we'll have breakfast at 8am with classmates and open our envelope at 9am. The location and program for our family's next 5 years decided!
The year definitely has gone quickly, but has not been as relaxing as most people claim 4th year to be. We're excited for the upcoming changes. Residency, and a new baby! Let's do this.
