Rolling, rolling, rolling…

Cross-posted on Dose of Reality

The residency application is definitely moving along. The official opening date for application submission was September 15, and everyone has been doing their best to get their materials in as early as possible. My application has been in for a bit, and the stress of watching my e-mail has increased so much! Here is a snap-shot of my thought process over an average afternoon during the past few weeks:

Hmmm, I should look at my phone and see if I have any new e-mail. I wouldn’t want to miss an interview invitation. Everyone keeps talking about how quickly the dates fill up after they are offered. Oh my goodness, look, an interview request that was sent 45 minutes ago already! Ahhhh! Let me open up my Google calendar where I have all of the potential interview dates entered and figure out what other programs are in the same region and need to have interviews that are near the same date. And also there are national holidays in November that I’d rather not miss. And also I would rather not fly to the West coast 12 different times. And also I need to make a decision on this half an hour ago. Ahhhh! Okay, it looks like this date should work. Take a breath, Andrea, so that your e-mail doesn’t read like some crazed and desperate applicant. Try for “Thank you so much for offering me an interview” rather than “I am so glad that someone will take me as a resident some day.” Okay, breathe. The tone is okay and the address is correct, so hit send.
Done.

There is a small amount of adrenaline that goes with each of these exchanges. Maybe a large amount. I’ll be glad when they are all scheduled and I can just deal with the anxiety of interviewing!