Our next 3 Years

Well, this Tuesday our family got its most exciting news since Elise. I have been accepted into the University of Florida's Anesthesiology Residency. This is absolutely great news for our family. To begin, they will accept my internship that I am completing in St. Petersburg. When I visited St. Louis University Hospital, St. Luke's in Kansas City, and University of Oklahoma Medical Center for anesthesia, they all told me that I would have to repeat my internship, an additional year. UF also will allow me to begin in September 2010, after I have completed my internship. The best part is that they have offered me a contract outside the match process. The match is a very stressful process that begins in September every year and extends through March. All the candidates rank positions numerically after interviewing during late fall and early winter. All the residencies rank the candidates as well, and a computer, liken to the evil BCS, matches up candidates' top picks with residencies' top picks to find the best match. This of course means many people do not get residency spots at all. UF will be taking me as a post-graduate year 2 (PGY-2), also known as clinical anesthesia 1 (CA-1). To top it all off, the program is among the best in the country, and has all the great benefits that I considered of the other three programs I mentioned above. I realize that Gainesville is not in the Midwest, but finishing in August of 2013 from a high-ranked program is a huge advantage from otherwise graduating in June 2014. Kristin and I agree that this feels like the big break we have been deserving of and waiting for. It is quite out of the ordinary that someone can get a residency position at such a great program outside the match. I was made aware of 5 CA-1 positions available outside the match when I interviewed at UF 10/14. I was really surprised and excited about the program and decided to take five vacation days to visit again last week. Well, it seems to have paid off really well. Not only had I had the experiences of rotating at different residencies through my fourth year of medical school, but I had also read a lot of anesthesiology material. One of the chief residents I met while interviewing at UF let me stay with him and his wife while I visited, and he really helped me prepare before going into the OR each day. I owe him so much for his help. The benefits at UF are an improvement from my current intership, and include health insurance paid for by the program. The only pediatric pulmonary hypertension specialist in the state of Florida is at UF. The cost of living is more comparable to the Midwest, and many residents manage to have families and allow their wives to stay at home. It is a very large program, accepting 20-plus residents a year, and I believe the program has about 90 residents in total. This allows them to have resources and faculty that rival most other residencies. During my visit, I was able to spend time in the new South Tower, a new hospital across the street from Shands, the main hospital. The South Tower houses the new Emergency Trauma Center, 12 operating rooms, several ICU's and other patient rooms; all state-of-the-art. The residency will give me excellent training that will allow me to work anywhere, doing anything I desire in the country, but our plans are likely going to return us back to Springfield. We are depressed about having to survive the terrible weather down here for a total of four years, we'll just have to be strong. We hope to have a larger house in Gainesville so that we can better accomodate in the future. It's directly in the middle of the state, and it takes about 1.5 hours to get to St. Augustine Beach on the east coast. I'm doing an anesthesia rotation in Springfield 11/23-12/18 at Cox Hospital. I'm hoping I might be able to talk to some of the docs at St. John's also about the possibility of working there in the future. This news is so much more exciting and important than the news of getting into medical school. Where a physician does their residency normally makes more of an impact than where they went to medical school. I'll also finally have a school with great sports teams including football national championships in 2006 and 2008, and basketball national championships in 2006 and 2007. The program has a website at www.anest.ufl.edu if you're interested. I'm hoping that announcing my residency here will answer most questions. Hope all is well, see you soon. Love, Jason, Kristin, and Elise