My friend emailed me a couple of weeks ago and asked me to cover a call for him. As he had stepped in when I was overwhelmed and needed extra help, I really couldn’t say no. He’s also offered to make up for it and cover for me when I’m on call in April, so that I can add an extra interview to my schedule, so I shouldn’t complain.

So instead of my first completely free weekend in a long time, I’m on call. We’ve already capped and tucked in the patients, the intern and senior med student have been watching the super bowl (crappy ads, somewhat entertaining game (and I don’t really like football)), and I’ve been researching how to make my own swiffer-jet pads and produce bags and making a 101 things in 1001 days list. So far, making a cathedral quilt and cook dinner every night for a month have made the list. What would you add to your list?

I had my first interview on Friday at Rush University. I drove down early that morning to miss Chicago traffic, but it meant that I only had about 5 hours of sleep (nerves, kept thinking of everything that I needed, cold feet kept me awake) and that made for a really long day. Especially since 3.5 hours of it was being on rounds, listening about patients that I didn’t know and trying to look as if it was the most fascinating thing ever. I managed not to yawn too much AND not fall asleep during noon lecture (something I never manage usually. Dark room during lunch, lecturer droning = instant sleep), which was impressive. And did I mention that I didn’t get breakfast and only had a half slice of thin crust pizza for lunch?

The interview went well, I think. Apparently my letters from my attendings were really strong and full of praise, which I was glad to hear. Especially since one of the writers is the director of the neurocritical care program here and he hasn’t offered me an interview yet and since I waive my rights to read them, it was a little nerve wracking.

For my own benefit, when I’m looking back and needing to submit a rank list, here’s my (nicely cut) impressions of the program.

1. Procedure wise: strong. A month of anesthesia and procedures, so I can learn to intubate. Working with neurosurgery, so I can place EVDs and burr holes. Fellows do central lines and art lines.
2. Minimal TBI (traumatic brain injuries) and traumas in general. They may be allowing us to rotate at Cook County Medical Hospital, which is the trauma center of the entire country, I think, so that would be improved. Most of the patients are transfer patients, so they can be quite sick.
3. Closed ICU. All patients are neurology primary patients with neurosurgery consult. There’s still the drama and clashes between the two departments (evident even just in a half day rounding), but maybe a little less?
4. Potentially willing to work with me to create a combo program. Dr. Temmes was a med-neuro back in 2006, so he understands and Dr. Bleck established a combo in Virginia several years ago, so they seem willing. The fellowship director, Dr. John was not so eager and thought that there would be snags, but was willing to consider doing it with an additional 6 months. In any case, I get at least 4 months of MICU.
5. Dr. Bleck is the founder of neurocritical care. The guy who started the entire movement.
6. All of the attendings come for different, but very strong programs in neurocritical care. Dr. Temmes is from Columbia, Dr. John from Mass General, Dr. Patel from UCSF and Dr. Bleck is from all over.
7. It’s downtown Chicago. Downtown Chicago. Horrible traffic. Expensive housing. I’d have to sell my house. 🙁
8. It’s Chicago. The opera, the art museum, awesome concerts. Closer to Susan and Michelle to visit. Still manageable to see Chris regularly. Two years might not so bad.
9. Similar sort of program as my own. Second year fellow seemed relaxed and comfortable managing the team/patient.
10. There’s not a fellow in 2010. Meaning it’d just be me for the first year. I’d don’t know if it would affect me.
11. Q4 call in house the first six months with the neuro resident. Home call afterwards, come in for procedures and sickie patients after that.
12. Teams consist of 1 neuro resident, 3-4 anesthesia, occasional neurosurgery and nurse practitioners. MICU fellows rotate through.
13. Schedule may consist of working every Sunday??? Not certain about that.
14. Stipend basically the same as here (but higher costs of living). Rest of benefits comparable.
15. … I could be happy here. Definitely on the rank list.

So far, I’ve got an interview scheduled at Henry Ford (Detroit) in March. I’m trying to schedule an interview with Cleveland Clinic the day before so that I could drive out (and maybe spend the weekend with Michelle and Kelly … ?) and save some money. Both programs are being rather difficult however. And that’s it so far. Oregon offered me an interview, then didn’t respond when I suggested some dates. UCSF can’t seem to find my letters of recommendation (even though I confirmed that they were sent). And another 4 programs have emailed back, saying that they had received my application and would be letting me know. I’m getting a little impatient. I have very little free time to interview, and February would have been a good month to interview: I’m on a consult month and can miss some time. Now, tickets anywhere would be so expensive.

I had church friends over for dinner after the interview (I managed to avoid most of the traffic going home too! Yay!). I really should stop hosting friends when I’m sleep deprived. I think I put my foot in my mouth more times than once and embarrassed myself (I can’t really remember the particulars anymore, I guess that’s the good thing about exhaustion). The salmon was excellent as always (have I shared my recipe before?) and the company was good. I just wish I could have appreciated it more.

And thus ends the weekly update. 🙂

This is why I’ve been limping around:

My feet hate winter. If I don’t keep them slathered in cream, they develop cracks which bleed, making for very painful times. I haven’t quite gotten to the bleeding point yet, but we’re laying on the cream before bed tonight.

I spent a good portion of my free time this morning browsing around this site. I do get rather frustrated at the princess marketing for little girls, but there are some amazing braids on that blog. I’ve been growing my hair out for the last year going from this:

to hair like this:

(I’m desperately in need of a trim.)
My hair style for the past year has consisted of washing hair, combing it and letting it dry straightish. The next day, I pull it back into a low lying ponytail, and the following day the cycle repeats. But my hair is finally long enough to braid. I love braids. I’m usually a two french braid, straight down the back with the ends tucked under, so it was awesome to get some new ideas. This is the braiding style that I wanted to try today, unfortunately I discovered that I am not dexterous enough to braid my own hair sideways. Instead, I went for 2 french braids that ended 2/3rd of the way down and then brought together and braided the rest of the way. I then took the remaining hair, twisted it into 2 ropes and wrapped everything together. I loved the result:

The twisted ropes were super easy to make; I think that I’m going to head to the pharmacy and stock up on clear little elastics so I can do it more often.

I’m submitting the last round of secondary applications and supplemental stuff early tomorrow morning. I’ve heard back from about 4 programs with definite offers to interview (nothing from my own home program, natch). All of my letters of recommendation were finally sent out (although a couple may still be missing, have to check on that tomorrow too); that took forever. Now I just have to set up the interviews so I can cluster trips together (and hopefully save some money in airfare) to minimize time off. I’ll be doing a couple of interviews in February and April, but the majority will be in March, I think.

I finally updated my pictures on Picasa. You can go there and see all of the beautiful pictures of my handsome little nephew who’s now an entire month older and is a prodigy in every way. Laura B, I also put up some of the pics of your cute kids too. If you want the full size images, let me know. 🙂

And I think you’re all caught up in the life of Julia!

From PBS’s “Bachelors of Highbury Quiz, I got:

Quite right, too.

I’m apparently not a Mr. Elton kinda girl at all: only 1% of the vote.

You should all take the quiz too! It can be found here, but remember, Mr. Knightley is mine. 🙂

I celebrated finishing my applications (I’ve heard back from 8 of the 14 programs) by finally watching Cranford. Overall I enjoyed it a lot, although I’m starting to see why people compare Elizabeth Gaskell with Dickens. It’s available on PBS until Jan 10th, if anyone is interested. The Return to Cranford christmas special will be playing on your local PBS station the next two Sundays.

Speaking of costume dramas and Elizabeth Gaskell, have you seen this?

I sent off my applications this morning. Two of the programs who had the 12/31 deadline listed have already contacted me, stating that the information on the Match website was false. They either had no deadline or it was later this month. And two have bounced back as “delivery failure,” so I’ve got to do some more searching. One program just hired one of our fellows here and stated that he was “looking forward to meeting” me. So I may already have an interview. Downside is that I strongly dislike working with this particular fellow and I’m not sure that I’d want to go to a program where he would be in charge of me and my education for 2 years.

I need to contact my letter writers and make sure they are on target for sending out letters by Friday/Monday. And then fill out any secondary applications.

I’m mailing off the request for my board scores today. I’m sending a copy to myself and another to my neurology program, which they will copy and then give back to me. Hopefully, this will mean that I won’t lose it again (of course, I’ll go to all of this trouble and never need it again. But you never know).

And after all that, I think I can sit back for a little while and wait for the invitations. What a relief!

And a big thank you to all of you for your support and words of encouragement. When I’m overwhelmed, I don’t get a chance to respond, but I really appreciated your suggestions.

1. The note cards for my speech that I gave for Academic Decathlon my senior year of high school. It was a grand, patriotic speech. I had the timing perfect and everything. My second cousin beat my score by 2 points and won the bronze medal.
2. The movie ticket from when I first saw Serenity.
3. My MCATs scores. Yeah, nobody’s asking for those anymore.
4. Heating bills from 1999-2000.
5. My birth certificate (yay! I had wondered where that had gone!).
6. My Lord of the Rings map that I got with the first extended DVDs. It’s now rather discolored in spots.
7. Essays I wrote in high school.
8. A really ugly Jesus figurine that Sam gave me for Christmas one year. “You can’t throw away Jesus!” she said. So I haven’t. But I think I’ve found her Christmas present for next year.

Just no Step 3 scores. Step 1, Step 2 CK & CS, yep, got those, but Step 3 are missing. I’ve gone through every piece of paper that I own and I can’t find them. I’m pretty sure that they were accidentally thrown away when I was cleaning through things. I just wish I could remember what they were. I know that I passed, obviously, and I have a rough idea of what my score was, but I have no way of confirming. To request my score, I have to fill out a form, have it notarized that I am me, mail it in for 5 business days of processing and then my scores will be sent back to me. So if I’m lucky, I’ll have them by the end of next week. It’s not cheap either. But since I need those scores, I have to cough up the money.

I’m going ahead with the applications. I’ve spent way too much time and effort coordinating all of this. I can’t imagine that I’m the only one who thought to wait to send in applications until the Match registry was open. And it’s not my fault that the process was so horribly arranged. Seriously, I hunted on all of the universities websites looking for application information and there wasn’t anything mentioned about deadlines anywhere. The only program that had a deadline listed on their website was Columbia University who recommended that “applicants submit their information 2 years prior to the starting date” (ie July), which I had already missed by the time I even made up my mind. I’m sure that there are going to be programs that are not going to offer me interviews because of this. But here’s what I’ve got going in my favor:

From last year’s match:

Of the 49 programs last year, only half matched. The three programs that I’m most interested in at the moment (Virginia, San Francisco and here) did not match. I’ve still got a chance.

Thanks again to platypus and bjorks_defender for their help with my letter. It was so appreciated.

Every time I apply for something, it goes wrong. Medical school, the many board tests, residency. And now this fellowship.

So I get on to register for the match. There has been absolutely no information at all about what is needed for the registration. Just how much it costs. You can’t find out information about the programs until you register.

Registration opened today.I get on, and they need my USMLE scores. And I can’t find my Step 3 score. I don’t throw anything away without double and triple checking that it’s not needed. I have paystubs from when I was a tutor my sophomore year of college. But I can’t find this. It’s not available online. To request a copy will take 5 business days and I can’t actually send a copy to myself without even more time being involved.

So I fudge the results, I’ll fill in details later and finally can pull up the programs’ information and see this:

Application Deadline: 12/31/09.

12/31/09.

As in 5 days ago.

How am I supposed to know about an application deadline when I can’t register until 4 days after its already passed?????

I give up. Life, I take the hint. I guess I’ll try again next year or apply for open position after the match is over. I don’t know. I don’t know.

From The Writer’s Almanac:

“It’s the birthday of J.R.R. Tolkien, born John Ronald Reuel Tolkien in Bloemfontein, South Africa (1892). His father, a banker, had moved to South Africa for work, but he died when Tolkien was four years old, and his mother moved the family back to England. They lived in a rural village outside the city of Birmingham. Train tracks went right beyond their house and young Tolkien was drawn to the Welsh names on the sides of coal cars, names like Nantyglo and Senghenydd. And his mom tutored him in Latin, and as a young child he was fascinated by the way that language worked. When he was eight years old, his mom converted to Catholicism, and her family was so upset that they disowned her. Now the family, which hadn’t had much money anyway, had even less.

“And then, when Tolkien was 12 years old, his mother died from complications of diabetes, and he and his younger brother were put in the care of a Catholic priest. He went to a good school, started inventing his own languages, and formed a literary group called the T.C.B.S., friends who exchanged ideas and critiqued each other’s work. He graduated, got into Oxford. But before he started, he took a summer trip with friends hiking in the Swiss Alps, and much later when he wrote about Bilbo Baggins hiking the Misty Mountains, he used his memory of that summer in the Alps.

“But as a teenager starting at Oxford, he had no desire to write fantasy novels. Instead, he was interested in language. He studied Classics, Old English, Finnish, Welsh, and the Germanic languages. He went to fight in WWI, spent four months on the Western Front and then got trench fever and was sent home to recover. All but one of his friends from the T.C.B.S. literary group were killed in the war, and to honor them and also to help work through his own awful war experiences, he decided to write down some stories. They were stories about elves and gnomes, but they were not cheery fairy tales — they were filled with war and violence and trenches dug under battlefields.”

I raise my glass (orange juice tonight). Happy Birthday, Professor.

I ended up not having to go into the hospital last night after all. It took the transport SIX HOURS to bring the child from the fringes of civilization to the hospital. My attending went in and saw the child, ordered everything and then called me to confirm that I didn’t need to go in. By that time, I had missed dinner with my friends and the dance was winding down (my friends stated that it was not a swing dance after all) and I really do make it a point to avoid highways after midnight on NYE, so I ended up making hot cocoa, putting on Star Trek and falling asleep 10 minutes into it. Happy New Year to me. Oh well.

I did meet up with my friends this afternoon for lunch and catch-up. I do have wonderful friends. They complain that I never mention them in this blog. Which is true. So consider this your shout-out: Laura, Laura and Sarah! We stayed at the restaurant for hours and then saw Where the Wild Things Are. I’ve been wanting to see it for a while, and I found it supremely disappointing. The whole thing was depressing with very little whimsical happiness that I had expected.

And then I got to top it off with Dr. Who. It was wonderful and lovely and heartbreaking all at the same time. I cried. No wonder I have a headache!

I have pictures to share and end of the year/decade (okay, I do know it’s not really the end of the decade, since there wasn’t a year 0 BC/AD/CE, but everybody else is doing it!) reflection memes to post and that freaking personal statement to finish (I loath it. Passionately), but right now, I’m tired and a little bruised in the soul and headed to bed.

ETA: And, of course, I forget to publish this. I was tired!