The New Year is upon us and with that, comes the beginning of the CaRMS national interview period. I still have a couple of weeks to prepare myself but the votes are in and I will be visiting 11 Universities nationwide to determine whether or not we are compatible. For those of you who have been paying close attention, you will notice that I applied to more Universities than I am visiting. I have thus had the pleasure of reading a couple of letters of thanks… but no thanks! My application was declined by two schools. When I started this process, I wondered how I would feel if and when these letters arrived and it is a question that I have been asked over and over again by friends and families. The truth is I was ready for it.
As medical students we learn many lessons as we grow as people and professionals. One of the foremost lessons I have learnt is how to deal with failure. Let’s face it; those of us who have had the fortune to get into medical school haven’t failed very often in our lives. We are used to being near the top of the class and succeeding in most of our endeavors. Of course, when you fill a class full of these type-A personalities, all of a sudden most start trending towards the mean. 
Then come the clinical years. In the hospital we are put on the spot time and time again. More often then not, especially at the beginning, the answer to almost every question asked is “uhh…. I…..mmmm…. uh….. this was so much easier when it was all multiple choice…ummmm… urine output?” (Usually a good guess) With time I started to know more and more, but in the interim I became very comfortable with being uncomfortable. And I think most of my colleagues felt the same way. After all, it’s a giant step from book learning to diagnosis, and it’s not uncommon for students to falter on encountering a living, breathing patient.
So, when I got a couple of letters of rejection, I didn’t see it as a someone appraising my life and work and deciding I wasn’t good enough, but rather as an incompatibility between two beings. And it is better that one of us realize it before a bad match occurs. I still have eleven schools on the board and I look forward to getting to meet them all. It should be a wild ride and for any of you who are about to embark on a similar journey in whatever specialty, I wish you the best of luck and would appreciate hearing about your experiences in the comments section of the blog.