To Be or Not To Be

I am on the in-patient medicine service at Baylor Garland this couple of weeks. The upper-level resident I’m working with said I can go home early today at 3pm because there wasn’t much going on. I’ve learned to not turn down an offer to go home early these days. As much as I’m learning and enjoying my rotations, the home draws me. Mainly because there’s always something to be done, the laundry, paying a bill, grocery shopping, or just get a extra few hours of rest. If all that’s not enough, the thought of seeing my cutie kitty pie is a great reward.

I am doing what’s called an “audition rotation,” a chance for me to check out their residency program and it’s a chance for the program to scope me out. So far, I’ve been very impressed. All the attendings are personable and engage in non-pimping style of teaching. The residents get along great, hard working, and geniunely enjoys what they do. The whole atmosphere has been relaxing and welcoming.

It has been quite refreshing, actually. I’ve been on rotations (not to mention names, but let’s say it’s something like surgery) and hospitals where as a medical student I was asked to sit in the back of room during conferences, expected to walk behind the attendings and residents on rounds, and pimped ‘til I thought I should repeat the first year of med school. While at Baylor, I was introduced by the attending at their grand rounds, the residents asked me to call them by their first names, and the attendings never came close to make me feel dumb when attempting to teach. Actually, this is the first rotation where I felt like I could ask questions and not felt like I should have known the answer already or tell myself I’ll secretly look it up later.

Any oh yeah, I’m being heavily recruited. I am trying to impress, too, of course, don’t mind the coming home early today bit. The residents are eager to share “why I chose this residency” story and I’ve been taken out to lunch twice. Okay, not trying to brag, but I’m not used to this level of treatment. So, all that courting is working, I’m won over by the whole program. I can really see myself thriving there, developing my expertise and confidence over the next three years.

I’ve been brought to the crux of decision-making, a place I didn’t think I would be at right now. Here’s the deal. I found out that as an osteopathic student, I am not bound to the same rules as my allopathic counterparts. That is to say, I don’t have to participate in the match and I can sign a contract with a program prior to the match! This was all new to me, I never knew I had that option. It has been all but made abundantly clear to me that I would be offered an early contract if I choose to. I’ve discussed this with Paul and he’s all for it.

Here's a list of pros for choosing Baylor Garland:

1. Knowing a full four months earlier before the match where I will be for the next three years. Aka: decreased mental stress.

2. Having essentially the rest of my fourth year “off”, the next 7 months, until I start intern year. I still have rest of my rotations to complete but I can relax and prepare much better. Not to mention, the mental freedom and time to be a much better housewife, time to travel, time to pursue/start a few of my ‘amibitious’ hobbies, time, time, time. . . what a great word!

3. Baylor Garland is just 15 minutes down the street from TI. Paul and I could have lunches together at Chinatown. We did this just the other day.

4. Location, location, location. Garland is like a suburb east of Dallas, which means no long drives to downtown Dallas (execpet for some specialty months) where the other residency programs are located.

5. House-buying. Knowing where I’ll be for the next three years, Paul and I can start looking for a house close to BOTH of our work places right now. With 6-7 months on our hands, we can even choose to build a house.

6. Great program as I already elaborated on.

As for the cons, it can be summed up in two words:

INTERNAL MEDICINE. Ever since my medicine months, I’ve decided I wanted to go into internal medicine, although family practice was my initial choice and was always at the back of my mind. For a couple of reasons, I’m applying to just one IM program as compared to three FM programs. I thought, “if I don’t get into my first choice IM program, then I’d certainly match into a FM program,” so the decision-making as to what specialty I’d eventually end up in was all to be determined by the magical process called the match. Now, however, the choice is back to me. Should I go with my initial plan, and let the match render it’s life-determining decision, or should I not even think about IM anymore and just go with Baylor FM?

Other good question to ask now are, what is it about IM that I liked so much? And do I truly love it more than FM? Will I be happy in FM knowing I gave up my chance for IM? Is going into FM a better lifestyle for my family and my future as a mother? Perhaps I can integrate inpatient work as a FM doctor? Perhaps being an internist will be better for having a family? Am I sacrificing my true love for praticality?

It’s a lot to think about. . .and I need to think. . .