Well, Ryan has officially submitted his rank list for the Match. It's out of our hands! It was strange...we had been deliberating, discussing, praying, considering, weighing options, and praying some more for absolute clarity on how to rank these programs (specifically wrestling with the top 4) for quite some time, and each day, it was as though we were absolutely, completely certain with a particular order, and then the very next day it would be entirely different. But still absolutely, completely certain. While he certainly had his favorite programs, depending on what we put priority on (proximity to family, prestige/quality of the program, amount of surgical training, where we wanted to live, how well he felt he fit, etc.), it would change which program wound up as number one.
Then one night when Ryan got home, he said, "I'm certifying my list tonight." "Okay," I said. I didn't even ask what order he was putting them in. He didn't even tell me until it was done. After all our deliberating, I was totally okay with just letting him do it, allowing my husband lead the process and trusting him with it. In fact, I had been praying that God would give Ryan that peace and direction as the leader of our family. It was so freeing for me. I know that the final decision rests in God's hands, and that gives me a tremendous amount of peace. As it stands, I'm really excited and happy about our list!
Regarding the process, I thought I'd give a brief explanation since not everyone is familiar with how it all works. Ryan's specialty is "Otolaryngology Head and Neck Surgery (OHNS)", though it's probably more familiar to the general public as ENT (Ear, Nose, and Throat). Essentially, he will work on everything above the shoulders (aside from the eye and brain) whether it be fitting people for hearing aids, helping people with sinus and breathing issues, removing cancerous tumors in the neck, taking out a child's tonsils, or repairing a baby's cleft lip. After residency, he can do a fellowship to train more specifically in a certain area if he desires to do so. It is an incredibly diverse and exciting field, but what they do and why he chose it could be an entire post in itself!
Anyway, in a nutshell, Ryan ranked all the programs where he interviewed in order of his preference (i.e., top choice is #1, second #2, and on down). He isn't required to rank them all if he isn't interested in attending them, but because Otolaryngology is a very competitive field, we have reasoned that we would rather match into a less desirable location than not match at all, so we are ranking every place he interviewed.
Each of the programs also ranked the candidates they interviewed according to their preference of who they want to come work for them. Once the lists are all submitted, everything goes into a computer algorithm which then spits out the match, with preference being given to the student. By that, I mean that if, for example, two programs ranked Ryan as #1, he would match at whichever program was higher on his own list. After you are matched, you're out of the system, so you cannot match at multiple programs.
On March 16th, we will find out if we matched. If we didn't, there's another system we'll go through to try and secure a match to programs that have open slots, but hopefully we won't have to worry about that. Then on Friday the 20th, it's Match Day! There is a ceremony at the school, and we'll receive an envelope that will tell us where we matched and thereby spend the next 5 years of our life. So crazy!
Overall, the interview process went as well as we could have possibly hoped, and we are excited and hopeful that everything will work out well for us come Match week. Ultimately, we rest in the sovereignty and goodness of God to take us to the place He has for us, even if that means that we don't match and have to wrestle through the heartache and difficulty of finding another program. Stay tuned for an update come late March!!
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