Good green beans

Today marks the official start of internship season in my (seemingly never-ending) quest for those two beautiful letters before my name....DR. To give you a brief idea of the complexity of this process, the introductory meeting took over 2 hours the morning and left me more confused than ever. Here's a brief run-down of what my life will hold in the coming months:

From now until mid-July I choose TWENTY (minimum) places across the country to apply for internship. There's only 6 accredited spots even available in my home state so your geographical window opens quickly.

EACH place requires an application packet that's usually between 30 and 50 pages thick-that includes an individualized essay for each place. ALL that is submitted to EACH place between October and December.

(Here's where I fit in my cross-country move to spice up life a bit.)

In January, the hope is to be invited to a few interviews because that means they're considering selecting you. It can get pricey (and difficult for a wheeler who can't rent cars!) to travel to even a few interviews but some say being there in-person can make the difference.

THEN-you rank the places you applied to in the order you like them with number 1 being the place you'd most like to go for internship. The site directors also rank all the people they interviewed.

Finally, the last day of February is "Match Day". It sounds romantic but it's generally not...That's the day that if all goes well you'll receive an e-mail that says, "YOU MATCHED!" If you do, you must tone down your celebrations in honor of your grieving colleagues that are faced with waiting an entire additional year and doing the whole process AGAIN! If you don't, you join the mourners (which some say ends in a better party anyway).

Somewhere in all this excitement, I'll be choosing flowers for my bouquet, selecting our song for the reception, and likely crafting something elaborate for the center pieces at my wedding. At least I'll have something fun to take my mind off the whole looming nature of this beast known as the internship process....

I had planned to ramble tonight about how the timing, demands, and uncertainty of the series of events leading up to Match Day is really quite challenging for a person with a disability. The thought of finding out what state I'll live in only a few months before I'll need to be there to work full-time makes me BEYOND anxious. But instead, I thought I'd share a funny conversation over text that I shared with my mom tonight.

I was researching potential sites and found a place in a particularly rural area in the mountains of Kentucky. Their salary is exceptionally high compared to most, but I've had a few odd experiences with some from the Appalachian region that are determined to believe me "bein a cripple" (as they so eloquently put it) must be related to my mom seeing a snake during her pregnancy. It's pretty tricky to talk people OUT of that belief enough for them to trust you to be their doctor, but I was trying to remain open-minded about the region so I sent a text to my mom saying, "What's (this city) like?"

She replies, "Good green beans."

[Photo caption: A pile of green beans.]

I thought at first this might be a code. My mom really enjoys making her texts as cryptic as possible. I gave up, called  her, and asked what in the world she was talking about. She said, "Well....it's really desolate and I'm not sure how accepting the people would be....but I was trying to be positive!"

My meeting today topped off with this enlightening conversation inspired me to make a spread sheet to keep all 20 or more spots straight and record what I like and don't like about all the sites. I might have to add a column titled "Quality of green beans" if the process gets any more confusing.