This is match week.
Here's a description of match week:

At 11:30 a.m. eastern time on Tuesday of Match Week, program directors and institutional officials learn whether their programs filled.

Actually, match week is the culmination of a process that started back on
August 15. Here's the calendar (for your reference, let's keep talking...):

http://www.nrmp.org/res_match/yearly.html

Getting IN to medical school is one gauntlet. The next gauntlet is getting into residency. And that's what "the match" is about. Medical students (and some post-grads) register with the NRMP (National Residency Match Program) in August, apply to residency programs, interview with residency progams (if invited) and then the medical student ranks the residency programs they've applied to in order of preference.

And the residency programs rank the medical students in order of preference.

And then a computer matches.

Both sides have signed an agreement, that if a "match" occurs, they will attend that residency program, or take that medical student, respectively.

There are, however. folks who don't match.

After match day comes the scramble. Posts are made of residencies which have positions open, and medical students and post-grads who haven't matched "scramble" to match with the open residencies.

Post grads may be matching to get into residency programs, or into fellowships.

Fellowships. Thanks to seemingly ever-present tv programs about physicians, just about everyone is familiar with residency, but fewer are familiar with fellowships. Though, after spending 3 years in medical school, it would be odd that the subject doesn't come up.

Basically -- residencies train you in a specialty, e.g., internal medicine, or surgery. In a fellowship the physician specializes even further -- say, into interventional cardiology for the person who's completed an internal medicine residency; or cardio-thoracic surgery for the person who has completed a surgical residency.

It used to be that, immediately after medical school the newly-minted physicians would serve an internship year, and then that would be followed by specialization in a residency. Now, the MDs start specializing in their first year out of medical school. Or, they may complete another year, not unlike an internship, called a "transitional year".

We'll talk more about this, later.

There is a Stanford Professor of Management and Engineering, Robert I. Sutton, who has written a book called "The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn't".

So what does that have to do with Medical School?

After all, when you think about the place where doctors work -- often in hospitals -- it hardly seems like your typical workplace environment, right? Because your "typical" workplace has cubicles and offices and the like. Not too many of those in a hospital (although the administrators tend to have them; and, surprisingly, a few others).

Now, of course, physicians do often have "offices", so maybe that's the kind of wokplace we should think about.

Professor Sutton includes other adjectives which fit within the "asshole" paradigm: jerks and bullies. And how does Professor Sutton define these people? He describes them as people who leave others de-energized and demeaned. He also comments that the study of assholes is aided by the academic study on bullies and psychological abuse. He also describes it as something that more powerful people do to folks with less power.

He refers to the many studies done in England and the U.S., to survey people who feel they work with psychological abusers. And the number one occupation who complained? Nurses.

Who do you think they were being abused by? Well, patients, for one. But, of course, primarily, it would seem, by physicians.

This was quickly followed by the fact that it's not only nurses who get abused -- but also surgical residents and medical students. And that this sets up a chain of events -- those who are abused take the cue from their higher-ups, and when they move up, perpetuate the psychological abuse.

It was this kind of experience that anthropologist Melvin Konner writes about in his book "Becoming a Doctor: A Journey of Initiation in Medical School" and resulted in his not continuing his medical education.

The movie "The Doctor" (1991), with William Hurt, also shows an arrogant surgeon as he has his come-to when he find himself at the other end of the medical system.

A more cynical view on the experience of medical school is the classic fiction book (and some say that it is thinly veiled fiction) by Samuel Shem, "House of God". If you are considering medical school, these two books, Shem's and Konner's, are must reads.

Further, the attitude is further exemplified in the movie "Malice" with Alec Baldwin, with one of the great movie speeches (next to the far better known "Greed is good" speech of corporate raider Gordon Gecko in "Wall Street"):

"I have an MD from Harvard, I am board-certified in cardiothoracic medicine and trauma surgery, I have been awarded citations from seven different medical boards in New England, and I am never, ever sick at sea. So I ask you: when someone goes into that chapel and they fall on their knees and they pray to God that their wife doesn't miscarry or that their daughter doesn't bleed to death or that their mother doesn't suffer acute neural trauma from post-operative shock, who do you think they're praying to? Now, go ahead and read your Bible, and go to your church, and, with any luck, you might win the annual raffle, but if you're looking for God, he was in operating room number two on November 17, and he doesn't like to be second-guessed. You ask me if I have a god complex. Let me tell you something: I am God."

One has to wonder if parents, rather than talking about "My son the doctor" would really feel as happy if they said "My son the asshole."

Does it mean that you can't come out of medical school as a genuinely nice, concerned, caring person. Perhaps. But this is something you probably aren't being told as you aspire (or your child aspires) to become an M.D.

I've known, and heard about, people who have decided to go to medical school at all kinds of different points in their life.

I am one of them. In fact, I've considered it multiple times in my life.

And I took the Medical College Admission Test (MCAT) twice (I think; the first one would have been over 30 years ago -- the facts surrounding this experience have been lost in the dusty archives of my mind, and the folks who put on the MCAT don't seem to have those statistics! :)

During 1994, when I took the MCAT for a second time, I was also an early contributor to something called "a usenet group", and the group was called misc.education.medical.

SIDEBAR: What is a usenet group?
"Usenet", as I am using it here, actually refers to what was called "usenet news" -- a set of text-based discussions that were originally passed between computers running the Unix Operating System -- over time it has been replaced by such things as yahoo groups and the like.
One company, dejanews, archived much of "the usenet news" over a number of years, and those archives were subsequently acquired by Google when they purchased dejanews -- and the posts can be found searching "Google Groups".
END SIDEBAR

But I bailed out, for various reasons. Early on it was because I had less than stellar grades. Later in life, it was because, well, because it was later in life, and medical schools have definite ideas about how old you should or shouldn't be to be admitted to medical school.

Nevertheless, fascination with medical education, the process of medical education, the process and implications of becoming a physician have been an interest for significant periods and times of my life. In the '00s, I became a frequent contributor to a board devoted to offshore medical schools ( http://www.valuemd.com ).

I've also had the benefit of various forms of healthcare education. I was trained at the "basic" EMT level 3 different times, and as a paramedic after the first of those. I've taken training to become a phlebotomist, and attended RN school for a year, before illness caused me to drop out.

When I talk about say I didn't pursue medical school (at least in the U.S.) because "it was later in life" -- I did this with understandings garnered from The Association of American Medical Schools (AAMC) indispensable guide -- "Medical School Admission Requirements" (MSAR) -- which comes out yearly and provides a breakdown of the most recent matriculating classes for which they have data.

And if you are considering medical school, or know someone who is (why else are you reading this?? :) -- you MUST get a copy of the MSAR -- as soon as you start seriously considering medical school -- whether you are in high school or in college. My knowledge of the information there actually made it possible for a then-aspiring physician to realize how she might be able get into medical school in spite of getting, I think it was, a "D", in organic chemistry. There was a program which applied well to her particular situation, and with that knowledge she was able to enter and graduate from medical school.

The MSAR has a great deal of statistical information -- things as age breakdowns, grade breakdowns, MCAT score breakdowns, gender breakdowns, application/matriculation breakdowns -- and some of this information is provided for all medical students/medical school applicants as well as some specifics for each medical school. Never mind that a lot of what gets people into medical school really goes rather much beyond those points -- though it's helpful to know where a medical school application could be weak.

For instance, when I first considered medical school, my gender was a liability. Only 10% of all medical students were female. (Now it hovers around 50%, with some schools actually having more women students than men.)

There are groups that can help -- so, if you are older, which is also called being "a nontraditional student" -- the organization National Society of Nontraditional Premedical and Medical Students (found at http://www.oldpremeds.org )

The third time I seriously considered medical school -- and why I became involved with http://www.valuemd.com -- was in the early '00s, after I was laid off from my latest high tech position, following the "dot com bomb".

At that time, I also looked at a variety of healthcare-related occupations.

Medical school -- becoming a physician -- may be right for you, I don't know.

But I do know that the process of becoming a physician takes longer, costs more and is less remunerative than 20-30 years ago. When I considered medical school in 1994, the American Medical System was already changing, and it was widely understood that understanding of these changes, and the significance of these changes, could easily be something asked in a medical school interview.

And those changes have come home to roost.

Physicians -- who used to recommend the career of physician to their children -- no longer do so, in increasing numbers.

And I think anyone who is seriously considering medical school should be made aware of just why that is -- and why some doctors closed their practices and "retired early".