Matching and Graduation and Moving

Oh, my!

 David's letter

The match results map. After looking at this we immediately knew we hadn't matched in Spokane which was our 3rd choice.

Yes it's true, I can finally say where we are going after medical school. At least for the next five years. David had his match day WAY back in March and we found out that he was accepted to an internship year in Columbus and Orlando, Florida's radiology residency. I was so very excited for David, the ONLY thing that would have made this news better would have been if Florida had an internship year in their program. I'm a little disappointed that we have to move twice in the next year, but I believe David is going to be so happy at Florida hospital. I had a good feeling about Florida all along, only at the time I thought I was crazy because it's farther from family and lets face it super hot and humid. 

After David interviewed in Orlando he called me up to let me know how it had gone and he was so happy (almost giddy). One of the program leaders turned out to be a stake president with 8 (yes 8) kids who had moved there from Arizona but loved it so much their family had decided to stay. That was good to know because that meant that he knew the school systems were good too. He also told David that Florida is one of the top three areas in America where the church is growing right now (I had no idea) and that their ward had had 105% attendance the previous Sunday. Can I just say that ANY reservations about my "crazy" idea to apply to Florida were almost completely solved by this ONE interview.

I had this picture as my screen saver for a while and it's so funny because Davie looks
annoyed but he was just trying to get down and run around.

David had also enjoyed his interviews with the other directors and met a fellow UT medical graduate who finished back in 2011with some of our friends. This is very telling though because David typically hates interviews. David can very easily come across as shy or possibly aloof when he is nervous, but he is neither. The hospital itself is part of the Adventist health system so David enjoyed the beautiful pictures of Christ in the building and the spirit he felt. He also said the hospital itself was beautiful.

The program is private so it is not connected to a college which means the classes are small (4 per class) compared to an average of 8-12 per class in medial college based residencies. The benefits are great, full medical for David and us, free meals at work, free parking as well as fun stuff like free tickets to NBA basketball games once a year. These things may not sound like much but parking alone in Houston Texas was $2,000 a year, it was a higher cost of living AND the salary was already less than Florida's. It adds up FAST.

When it came time to start writing thank you emails to the program directors David was doing it around 10pm one night. He sent one to Florida hospitals program director at like 10:01pm and within 15 minutes she had written him back! David has (and still is) always been a very humble person, probably too humble and this kind of response from a program director had him excited but I knew it meant something a little more.

To put this into perspective when David was applying for medical school the second time around it took his younger brother telling him that he wasn't "bragging" enough on his resumes before David added more about his achievements on the medical school applications. For us and especially for David his experience with the Florida program was positive from beginning to end which made our choice so easy.

Davie's celebratory lunch after Daddy's graduation

This whole matching experience is something I could talk a LOT about, but I will leave it at that because I don't want this post to become super long. We are so excited and happy to be going to Florida it is going to be our GREATEST adventure yet. And lastly I just have to add how proud of David I am because he has worked SO hard the last 4 years and for him to get his first choice in residency programs shows his dedication. Life is good.