An Open Letter to the Residency Applicant

September 14, 2012

Hi Dear Applicant,
So you have finally finished the USMLEs and are ultimately ready to apply for residency, huh! Awesome, good job there :-) The steps are really a tough battle, I mean literally apart from all the tension and stress, they are just too long for an exam. 8-9 hours man, I had such a hard time staying awake the entire duration of the test, and in fact one of my very able friends actually managed to catch up on some lost sleep during his step 1 (don't worry, he shall not be named).

But anyways, congratulations of your great success, I am sure you did great and are now looking forward to the interview season. Well, I am not going to lie and I must admit that interviewing can be taxing and more stressful than even the preceding steps themselves. Especially if you are planning to apply all over the country and are going to fly cris-crossing the continent, it will be heavy on your pocket and tiring as hell, but on top of that not knowing where you will be heading coming June can sometimes give atrial flutter to even previously healthy individuals. We’ll talk about that some other day. For now, I thought I had some thoughts (and perhaps some advice) I could share with you from my own personal experience. I was standing in your shoes last year and did the very same things over the winter months that you are going to do in a few weeks, and I did finally match to a program which I now love, so here we go:

Be Nice
It’s very important to be nice, to everyone, always, but especially this interview season. Remember that folks around you are just as stressed as you are. They are going through the same stuff as you are. Don’t be mean to them because being mean is just not nice. And there is a ‘Law of Conservation of Nice-ty”. The more nice stuff you do to others, the more comes back to you. It’s natural that you will be good to the program faculty that you meet (duh!!) but make it a point to be friendly to all the other applicants that you come across, say hi to all the airport staff and the air hostesses that you travel with (wink wink!!), spare a dollar for the homeless on the streets and tip the server (generously) who gets you coffee on a cold January morning when you are waiting for a flight/cab/train/bus/subway.

Make Friends
If you do what I told you above, you will make a lot of friends anyway but this is your opportunity to forge some really good friendships. I have; and I know you will. I would not have survived those few months without the friends I made and one’s I already had (you all know who you are and I owe you all one).

Trust Your Gut Feeling
There is only one true feeling in this world and that's the gut feeling. A lot of people will tell you different things about how to apply to programs and different interview tips, ranking programs etc. Listen to all of them but in the end do what you think is right. If your gut feels a program is the one you wanted to go to, grab it, swallow it, lick it (ahhh.. or may be just rank it on the top). If Mr. Gut feels otherwise, may be its not such a good idea trying to convince yourself that this is the place you want to go to.

There are NO Bad Programs
This probably is one of the best things of applying. ACGME has made sure all programs maintain a certain level/standard and as long as they are accredited, and trust me, they will maintain a certain quality. That makes sure that none of the programs you interview at will be bad programs. Some might be better than others of course and then some you will like more than others for lots of reasons, but no bad programs for sure.

Keep an Open Mind
As a follow up to the previous one, when going to interview at a program, no matter what someone has told you about that program, keep an open mind, you never know that one program that everyone hated, you might just end up liking it because that place seems like the kind of city you grew up in or always wanted to live in.

Be Loyal to ONE Airline
Find out which airline has a hub at the airport you usually fly from and try making all the reservations on the same airline. It will earn you a ton of miles in return, which you can use towards your post match vacation. Sometimes if flights are marginally cheaper on a different airline, stick to your loyalty like a chewing gum and it will ultimately win you a free flight. I got upgraded to business class twice and have a free flight coming up, all courtesy my interview travel.

Travel Smart
Never carry your laptops with you; you won’t have time to use them. Learn how to fold suits in suitcases without getting bad creases. Make lint rollers your best friends. Research places where you are going to well before ending up there and know some ‘in case of emergency’ phone numbers (taxi service, airline customer service, bank helpline, a local contact may be) WRITE all these numbers down at two locations (at least). Put name tags on all pieces of luggage. Be prepared for cold weather and dress in layers. Do carry an extra pair of clothes in case you drop barbecue sauce on your shirt or get stuck somewhere in a snow storm.

Karma is a Bitch
Lastly, never ever forget this. If you hurt anyone, lie to anyone or make them miss their flight, bad bad things will happen to you. And then whether you send those stupid mails to 50 people in 5 minutes or share a photo on Facebook in the hundredth of a second, karma will come and bite you in your rear.

OK, enough of preaching for now. Get back to work.

But before I end, let me share one more thing, I stopped blogging, photography, doing everything that I loved, around this time last year after everything in this world seemed to have gone topsy turvy. Sometimes it felt like everything that could have gone wrong was going wrong with me, Murphy seemed to have developed a love hate relationship with me. Trust me, it's normal and it WILL happen to all of you. I think this blog post should have come a little early and I apologize for the delay, but better late than never right? Yeah, I thought so too. But here is something I want you to remember, these are going to be one of the most exciting weeks of your lives. It will be a big change. From being a parasite, you will soon be becoming an independent self-sustaining individual. You will become a REAL doctor. Things will start making sense again. Life is going to change, and this is just the beginning. And believe me, no matter how stressful it seems right now, no matter how bad abdominal cramps you have when you are hitting the submit button sending in your applications, it will all be nothing compared to the all the excitement that awaits you and all the fun you are going to have. So go out there, have fun, be your best and hope that you find whatever you are looking for!!

Yours
an applicant from last year

Bring BQC Back

"The questions come they chase each other, its a one place where my search can end, where everything I want to know is there.... Books books books... A book is your best friend. Books,books,books,books, bubalabala books.books.books."

And so used to begin the biggest, YES, the biggest quiz competition of our school times. Bourvita Quiz Contest. Sundays 12 Noon was when all of us used to sit glued to Zee TV to crack our brains and ruffle our grey cells .

1998, I was in Seventh Standard then. Army School Ambala Cantt. We had the preliminary rounds for selection of the two students who would represent the School at Mumbai; one from Eight standard and another one from seventh standard. I too appeared for the test but guess was not prepared enough. That year one of my seniors and a batch mate made it to BQC.

When in 1999 I was in my Eight standard, I knew well that this would be my last chance to make it to BQC, if I ever did. I was not too keen to come on TV or go to Bombay or anything. But everyone who used to qualify for BQC used to get a smart BQC wrist watch. I wanted that wrist watch. The round white dial, with two black hands and a bright orange-blue “BQC” written behind them. Dont know why but I just loved that watch ever since I saw it on TV the very first time. So yours truly decided to participate in the quiz to earn that watch.

BQC used to publish quiz books. Not that those quiz books were not nice but no one would read them all over again and again till they almost knew which question was in which volume and on which page. I somehow managed that. :P When the prelims were held at school in 1999, I was not much surprised. The first hurdle to my wrist watch was cleared.



Then came the regional selection. BQC sent their people in different cities to select one best team from the various schools of that region. The selections were held in our school and some six other local schools participated. My partner and me sat down to write the answers to twenty odd questions which were given to all of us. Once all the teams had finished answering, the BQC representative collected the papers and started correcting . Our hearts had gone into sudden narrow complex VT (Ventricular Tachycardia) then!! Once he was done, he started announcing the marks that each team got, not in any particular order though. So team A got 15, team B managed 12, team C 14... and so on! Once he was done and one of the other teams had almost jumped up in jubilation of having being selected, the two of us who were still in VT realised that our marks had not even been announced yet. The thought of having fared too badly to be even acknowledged converted the VT to asystole!! The BQC rep then interrupted the celebrations and continued to announce, "and by scoring twenty on twenty, the team from Ambala which will make it to Bombay for the Quarter Finals of BQC is Army School.. Congratulations Akshay and Zoravar!!" Asystole suddenly got converted to V Fib (Ventricular Fibrillation). The celebrations that were going on around us suddenly stopped. Lightening had struck not just them but us as well. We looked at each other in utter disbelief and confusion. Did we both just hear what he said or were we together day dreaming!! Indeed it had actually happened. We were going to Bombay.. The wrist watch, the prized wrist watch, we would be sporting that soon.

What happened in Bombay is for another day, but somehow BQC discontinued the 'tradition' of giving away those sleek wrist watches from that year.. :( Which was indeed a big disappointment especially for me..

Bring BQC back and puhleezzz get those wrist watches back too..

PS: And send me one when you do so!! You owe me that BQC.. :)

Are our priorities right??

CWG are over, and the 'Common Wealth' and hidden assets of the Indian people stashed away in secret Swiss bank accounts continue to elude the security agencies investigating one of the biggest money laundering extravaganzas ever. While we sure had India-Shining at the Games with our sports persons grabbing a lot of yellow metal, it is surprising why only so few are able to make the same mark at other international arenas (including the Asian Games that followed the CWG).

But leave that aside. Let us concentrate on the numbers here, numbers that give us palpitations Economic Numbers. We spent billions of dollars on this 12 day sports event while millions of children in our country don't have access to basic education. We boasted of cuisines from all across the world, sure to tickle the taste buds of the visiting athletes, while half our population is malnourished and does not even get two square meals a day. We built stadia and five star flats to accommodate the visitors in Delhi, when thousands in the same Delhi still live in slums. Roads were refurbished and many new ones were built so that athletes did not have to face traffic congestion in Delhi while many villages don't even have pukka roads linking them to the rest of the country.

We sure put up a brilliant show during the games, not just winning competitions but also showcasing our culture. The inaugural and closing ceremonies were the apple of the eye. Despite the collapse of the bridges and beds just before the event, Indian craftsmanship was at its best. Not just the on field and off field events, allegedly the managers of the games  too broke all records of corruption, which is taking more time to investigate than it took them to amass. Day after day, newspapers are flooded with reports of how much the Indian Government lost and this only makes the common man saddened by the state of affairs. I will seriously be happy if the Government imposed an embargo on all sad news related to the corruption in CWG and a final report is released once and for all in the end so that we don't have to feel aghast every single day. :(

A news report in today's ToI read, "Commonwealth Games in Delhi saw over Rs 1,000 crore being squandered as estimated by CAG ... This money would have been enough to set up 5,000 state-of-the-art or 10,000 basic primary schools across the country and could have taken care of the education of 1 million child labourers."[http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Rs1k-cr-CWG-loss-couldve-been-education-bonanza/articleshow/7803078.cms]


Having read this, it sets me thinking, are we even justified in holding any such events in India till we are able to set our house in order. Should we not be focusing on the 'roti, kapda aur makan' for everyone and then think about the 'khel-kood' part. We are hosting the Cricket world Cup right now, which I am sure again would cost the common man billions, but all we care right now is who will win the semi final in Mohali on Wednesday; but we forget the child in one of the villages of India who like many others, only wishes to know if he will get lunch today or not!

I am not against sports and neither am I opposed to development. But don't we need to set our priorities straight??

Think about it...