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Match Day: One Day and One Dramatic Year in the Lives of Three New Doctors by Brian Eule

Each year, on the exact same day in March, at the exact same time, each of the thousands of fourth-year medical school students across the country opens an envelope whose contents reveal his or her destiny. This is Match Day, the day on which graduating fourth-years are matched with their residency programs. The match might mean disappointment, if their top choices are rejected. It might mean joy and triumph if they are assigned their favored hospital program, the one they see as the doorway to their specialty and their lives' direction. The drama is intense; the rewards immense. Brian Eule allows readers to see something of what Match Day means, how it works, and how it affects the lives of medical students and by extension new physicians.

Eule explores the paths taken by three students, from just before Match Day all the way through their first year of residency. One of these young physicians is his girlfriend, Stephanie Chao; the other two are colleagues of hers. Each student faces her own challenges in medical school, in studies, ambitions, and personal life, and then even more challenges in her first year at her matched residency. While Eule himself is affected personally by what happens to Chao, where she will go, and what her specialty will be, he seldom intrudes into the book, as some authors do, beyond his role as an observer or the person most profoundly affected by Chao's match. This bestows more objectivity to his thoughts and observations of what happens not just to Chao but to her friends as well. As they move from their role as students to that of physicians, their journey develops from hesitant and uncertain interns to more confident doctors, with knowledge and experience and wisdom. Eule gives us a glimpse of this journey and leaves us with an admiration for medical students in general.

Labels: Brian Eule, Interns (Medicine), Women physicians